Bottled Up
by AnxSoc
Summary: Kyrn Mahariel was a Dalish ranger, happy scouting and hunting for her clan. The Blight and a corrupted Eluvian put a stop to that, and now she has nothing but contempt and anger to drive her on. When Zevran falls into her life, it may not be possible to continue playing the role she hates without questioning it.
1. A Pretty Rose for a Pretty Angry Lady

She wanted to throw the rose to the ground, but instead she had accepted it coldly, tried her best not to hurt Alistair's feelings as he went on about her loveliness and how she was the only light in a dying world. She couldn't' recall the exact words, because sometime part way through his nervous speech her mind had solidified to a lump of dark rage and her hearing had hardened with it.

But she hadn't stomped it, or tossed it aside, because amongst all their group, she seemed to be the only one in enough control of themselves not to simply blurt out their feelings at every possible chance. Morrigan frowned if they didn't kick puppies, and Leliana sulked if they could not spare the time to help the needy. Alistair seemed to want a pat on the head at every turn.

Oghren just wanted to drink and fight and follow her lead. At least his needs were quiet, and they didn't involve her body, so much as the bodies of many, many, darkspawn under his axe. Bodahn and his son had been equally useful, finding amazing artifacts in the ruins and battlegrounds they passed through in their travels. "Perhaps Dwarves are just less of a pain in the ass than humans?" She thought.

But then there was the Council of Orzammar. She hadn't seen such bickering, backstabbing and childish behavior since they had been forced to split two toys amongst six children back in the Clan. The absurdities of the Durgen'len were behind her now. Decisions she had considered simple courtesy, like not enslaving more Dwarves to the Anvil, and not stomping the already oppressed Casteless under their heels had earned her a strange rapport with her two human comrades.

At first she thought it was an earned respect, but what began as admiration had quickly turned to an obvious infatuation. Their increasingly simpering affections were starting to grate on her. Their sweetly pining faces were aggravated by her own two-faced attempts at diplomacy with each band of humans they had to entreat with to build up defense against the Blight.

It had come to a head when Alistair pulled her aside on the road to Redcliffe. He seemed relieved, even overjoyed that she paid no mind to his status as an unacknowledged Prince. What she saw as completely outside her interest, he seemed to think was some kind of rally of support. It was all she could do not to punch him when he'd wrapped her in a large armor-clad hug.

She had finally escaped his awkward, stumbling attempt to extoll on her beauty back at the camp, stomping away under and excuse of "meditating on her ancestor." Kryn notched the arrow, drew back the bow, and centered her target: a knot of wood on a gnarled tree far away from the camp's fire. With a whistle of released tension, the arrow struck its mark, but bounced aside as the point refused to purchase in the tough old wood.

"Of course it wouldn't stick," she thought bitterly, "The best hope for the world is a knife-eared hunter, but every noble we come to keeps thanking Alistair or Leliana, like I'm not here, like I'm not the one everyone keeps looking to for answers. None of them can imagine their asses being saved by a 'filthy wild elf'."

She notched another arrow, drew, centered, and released, and again the point refused to sink, instead glancing off the old scar next to the knot, and then thumping into a rotting stump next to it.

Many times the Keeper or the Lore-Singer would have her recite the old tales to the children. She had never had much patience for repeating half-truths to garner a confused smile from simpletons, and it felt no different with the cursed Shems she'd been stuck with.

Leliana's calm smile flashed before her, waxing on about the beautiful elven servants in the Orelesian courts. How she loved them ever so much, how graceful, how delicate, how well cared for they were, as slaves! Kyrn turned up a sneer, and tried again to strike the knot.

"She acted as if I should be happy!" Kyrn grumbled, "Overjoyed to hear how she fantasizes about my people like we're her personal porcelain dolls! Ugh!"

Another pull, another arrow flew, another shot skipped across the wood's surface, now missing by an even wider margin as she fumed under her breath, "As if I would be interested in sharing a bed with either of those….those! Half-wit children!"

Broken twigs cracked to her left side, and she spun wildly to point to the danger. Zevran's momentarily shocked face stared back at her, pausing her shot. The overdrawn string snapped, and the arrow whizzed haphazardly into the night sky as she fell to the ground as pain sliced across her cheek and arm.

"Bloody Durgen-eating-" She spat and growled, dropping to her knees to concentrate on stemming the flow of blood that was quickly seeping up from the gash angled around her forearm. Red drops fell into the trampled ground, one by one while the sound of tearing fabric echoed through the small clearing.

"I did not intend to intrude," Zevran apologized with a chuckle in his voice. When he reached over to encircle her arm, she pulled away. "Really?" He chided, "You don't even trust me to bind a wound?"

"Tch," she clicked, "Did you boil your shirt before you tore it?"

"Ah…" Zevran boggled, "No. It was part of my _shirt_ , before I tore it for you."

After a few moments of embattled stares, she finally huffed and extended her arm again, this time directing him to her elbow instead. "Tie here, then. Tightly. And find a stick about one hand long. Hurry please!" She injected, as he continued to eye her with good-natured confusion. She directed him, pointed to a few other items she needed, like a common moss to dry the wound, leaves the Dalish knew to prevent infection. They tourniqueted, then pasted and bound and he even did a middling job tying the strip over her head to hold the poultice above her eye well enough that she could watch as he snickered under his breath at her appearance despite the lesson she had tried to teach.

"You are quite the healer for a _vicious criminal_ , Grey Warden."

"Who do you think kept you from bleeding out after you tried to assassinate us?" She snapped. "Morrigan? Ha! She's a powerful witch, but her magic cannot mend, only destroy."

Zevran's laugh was instantly cooled to an observant gaze.

With a deep sigh, Kyrn went about trying to retrieve as many arrows as she could. Behind her, the rhythmic grate of stone against metal told her that Zevran had settled into honing his blades.

"Well," She thought, "If he's sharpening his blades, at least he's not stabbing me with them."

Two arrows were hopelessly lost, but she retrieved half a dozen, all needing some amount of tending. At the sight of Zevran diligently concentrating on the edge of his weapons, she decided to find a comfortable boulder and mend her own weapons, opposite him.

The bow was almost unrepairable. It was dependable ancient ironwood, but when the clan had gifted it to her on leaving, they probably had not considered the difference between lifetimes of hunting at a distance, and a month on the frontlines, bound up in tight melee skirmishes. She had been forced to use it as a blunt weapon more than once as an enemy bridged the distance.

Now she could clearly hairline cracks forming, and the shredded remnant of her last halla-gut string. The last of the blessing of her Dalish clan, dying in her hands.

"That bow has seen better days, yes?" Zevran asked, peeking up from where he tested the edge's quality by carving a small spiral into one of his bracers.

Kyrn only nodded, grimly looking over the handful of arrows, and considering how much of each one would be discarded.

"You have been in battle more than a month now. They say you fought ancient golems, and could have been crowned queen of Orzammar if you had been a dwarf. Surely, you should not be so upset over a few broken weapons?"

"And if I am?"

"Then I would say you are dishonest," Zevran smiled at her immediate glare, continuing, "Most people would not be so angry to receive a rose, either."

Kyrn's cheeks flushed hot, and she ground her teeth as she hissed back, "That's none of your business!"

"Oh, ho ho!" Zevran gaped, "But it is hard not to notice, when Alistair declares his love in front of the fire we all share, is it not?"

Kyrn slapped her own face, wincing at the sting against the newly poulticed cut. "Fenedris! I can't stand the way those two go on around me! Leliana's always telling me some insipid story about her time in the royal courts, and Alistair moons around me, looking for some new Duncan to lead him by the nose! I'm a decade younger than him, I shouldn't be leading this… JOKE of a warden unit! And I shouldn't have to pat him on the head when he continues to give me those-those- _insufferable_ puppy dog eyes every time I lie through my teeth to butter up some noble or paragon bastard we have to win over so the whole rotting country isn't eaten by darkspawn!"

"Oh, tell me how you really feel, then," Zevran nodded sagely. "Makes me glad you aren't honest with _me_."

"But I have been," Kyrn was snapped harshly from her rant by the sly way he pretended hurt. "When have I lied to you?"

"Since you are so very good at it, I surely wouldn't know, fair lady," Zevran cooed with a final swipe of his blade over the finishing leather, before striking it into it's hilt confidently.

"I… you're... " Kyrn sighed painfully, "You're making fun of me. Good. great. I suppose there's no one here who really takes me seriously." She gathered the arrows into her quiver, eager to find some new quiet spot in the marsh to repair her things. As she tried to stride past him, he grabbed her arm firmly. Lucky for him it was her uninjured arm, or her fist would have immediately taught his face proper manners.

"You misunderstand," Zevran soothed, "You are angry. You can't go on like this _all_ the time. Either you will explode or you'll blacken an eye you can't afford to blacken."

His fingertips traced up her arm. "I prefer a more physical approach," She remembered him saying." With a hard yank she escaped his attentions before he could feel her racing heartbeat.

"Ah, stubborn? Or perhaps you are dry, like the Chantry sisters?" Zevran quipped, cocking his head to side playfully. "You must be, to turn down a gift as nice as that rose, and as fine a catch as Alistair."

"Is that so? You can have him, then," Kyrn chirped. The lewd grin that spread over his features gave her pause.

"But would he have _me_?" He mused. "See, I have seduced women as well as men, bon fatale. But something tells me he is more… traditional than that."

A mixture of revulsion and intrigue spun in her guts as she watched the fantasy play out in little ticks of his features. The masculine romance did not disturb her, the clans had known men to lay with each other on occasion, even a few rare pairings had been bound in the view of the Dales.

No, what disturbed her was how suddenly her own thoughts had turned like his obviously had. How quickly she had imagined Zevran as he was no doubt imagining Alistair just now, and just for a moment, forgotten what really burned deep in her guts as they travelled to fight the darkspawn: Tamlen.

She paused again, part-way through storming off as Zevran called out, "I know you will not believe me-" She turned back and only replied with a glare. "But thank you."

"For what?" Kyrn glowered.

"For sparing my life. I do _like_ my life. Despite constantly fleeing from the crows, there is so much still left to savor and enjoy, yes? What are _you_ living for?"

Kyrn shot him one more uncertain glare, and shook her head, "I don't know. Killing darkspawn, I suppose."


	2. Seeing Halos Where None Exist

Zevran was awoken to icy cold splashing over him, and the crashing gurgle of running water filling his ears. Two strong, small hands held him down into the water, and just as quickly, yanked him back up.

"Shut your mouth," Kryn ordered, dragging him back to the shore with a grunt of effort.

"You say that a lot," Zevran coughed out a laugh before he could help himself. This was the second time he'd awoken to her face hovering above his. He had sworn to himself that it wouldn't become a habit, but he kept finding himself at her feet. Last he remembered, an ogre was barrelling through its fellow darkspawn, vicious little jet eyes set straight on Alistair and Kyrn, ignorant to everything around it, even Zevran himself with his favorite poisons ready, daggers aimed to strike clean through it's leg.

"And then?" He thought. There was a sense of motion, crushing pain, blackness, but the specifics of the battle were lost up until the point the cleansing cold of the stream had awoken him.

"I mean it," Kyrn snapped, wringing her hands through the rushing water, splashing energetically over herself for some small amount of cleansing as she dredged her helm through the waves. "You don't want to swallow any of the blood… or you'll waste all the effort of saving you from Alistair."

"How kind of you-uagh!" Zevran sputtered, shivering as she drenched him with a helm full of glacial runoff. He wasn't sure why he hadn't dodged the deluge, but his body wasn't responding well. Perhaps it was the sight of Kyrn in little more than her drenched gambeson and smallclothes, looking stern and wild with her dusky skin and dark brunette hair cropped short and tied in a convoluted series of intricate braids. More likely it was the lance of pain that shot from his hip to shoulder when he tried to roll.

"I mean it," Kyrn hissed as she smacked his face with a damp rag and worked at his skin. "I've seen soldiers dead within an hour from a few drops. And unlike our tag-along Mabari, there's no magical flowery cure that works on humans or elves."

"Alright, alright," Zevran finally snapped, batting her rough attentions away. "Why are you mothering me, then? Surely Leliana or Alistair could use your help-" Zevran paused as a smug smirk cracked over her face, and then drooped again. What was that emotion that had breached the stoney anger that usually held her features? It was the sort of look Taliesen used to flash him when he beat him at cards.

"Leliana was handily up a tree when the skirmish started. She's unscathed, and Alistair's over there," She thumbed a direction further down the creek, where the unconscious bastard prince lay half-into the creek. "He's breathing and his armor's better than ours. He got stomped just like you did, but it was a crack to the head that knocked _him_ out. You kept fighting like a rabid drake, until that giant thing flung you into a tree."

Kyrn swept the rag up his face one last time, fingers grasping into his hair as she squeezed the water through. He closed his eyes a moment, lost in the touch and pressure on his scalp. He always did like that, but he was brought away from the brief reverie by a squelching tap to his cheek.

"Stay with me," he heard. For a moment, the words took a different meaning, and he stared wide-eyed back at Kyrn, thinking of a different elven woman he had known long ago. Her hair had been firey red, her features more sharp and confident, unmarred by the Vallaslin that curled around Kyrn's cheeks like pointed ferns. No, the two women were worlds apart, but something in her voice reminded him, just for a moment.

"You have to keep awake for a while," Kyrn continued. "You hit your head hard. The way you wince each time you try to sit up, I'd wager you've cracked a few ribs."

"is that all?" Zevran hissed as he finally got his back up to a boulder for support. "I've had worse."

Kyrn eyed him critically, but nodded, "I bet you have, you-" she paused, head suddenly tilted off down the river to some sound he couldn't' hear over the ringing in his ears of throbbing in his skull. She was always like that, tilting her head to an animal call or noticing game trails the others couldn't recognize.

"Morrigan found a campsite," She sniffed, and grimaced. "Smells like she's burning a clearing. I'll get Alistair up, maybe we can build you a litter-"

"No!" Zevran growled, and hoisted himself up only to fall back against the rock with a snarl of pain.

Kyrn took a quick glance over her shoulder to watch Alistair groan and fumble to right himself from his watery bed. With a small chuckle, little more than a cough, she turned back to Zevran with a stern stare, "Alright, Da'Len. Will you at least let me help you up?"

Zevran smirked at that. Kyrn probably figured he didn't understand a word she said when she spoke the old Elven, but that he recognized. _Child._ He heard refugee mothers calling to their children countless times back in the whorehouse. On long nights with the Crows, he had dreamt that his own mother's voice called out to him with those same words. "Alright," he snickered, but immediately regretted the way it struck knives through his diaphragm. The next few moments were a fight against pain and black spots in his vision as blood pounded in his ears. A few feet raised into the air was like being tossed upon waves.

The worst of it cleared, and he found himself angled over Kyrn's shoulder, while her arm snaked around behind him, damp but steady, a warm reassuring spot amongst the chill of the creek that felt like it was settling all the way into his bones.

"Here," She pressed a small flask to his lips, and he hesitated.

"Some herbal-," He winced, "concoction of yours?"

Kyrn snorted, "Fen'aslin, wolf's blood."

As he grimaced back at her, she took a sip, and he could smell it as she exhaled, like a strong dose of licorice and nettle tea with a hundred complex scents he couldn't begin to recognize. He nodded, and took a swig and grimaced harder than before, "You southerners have the very _worst_ taste!"

She took another small sip, much smaller than the swig she'd tipped into his mouth, and lead them forward. He hardly noticed the countryside between the pain that was slowly dulling, and the growing blur from the strange spiced liquor she'd given him.

He couldn't fault the strength of her tonic, that was certain. By the time they'd managed the hundred feet to the clearing, he hardly noticed the buzz of activity at the camp around him, only that someone was making a campfire, others were arguing over dinner and cooking, and Alistair had been given the task of making sure did not sleep for a time, despite the fuzzy effects of the Wolf's blood.

Alistair seemed to take a bit too much joy in that task, surprisingly him with a flick of water, prodding his shoulder with a stick, and even kicking his leg with the tip of his boot at one point.

"Enough!" Zevran finally snapped at him, sat up and immediately regretted it. Some of the pain had eased, but and motion brought it full to the front of his senses again. Kyrn was there a moment later, panting as if she had sprinted, returned from the forest with a satchel full of gathered materials.

"Honestly, Alistair," Kyrn snarled, "I asked you to keep him awake, not bully the poor man!"

Alistair glanced between them sheepishly, running his hands through his hair in an awkward manner. "Well, he's alright, I didn't-"

Kyrn pointed to Leliana and Ogrehn at the fire, and commanded, "Gather some more firewood. We'll need to boil water for everyone." When he didn't move fast enough, she snapped and Alistair stood to attention in a clatter of armor and dashed for the edges of the clearing. The bastard prince's obedience was enough to make Zevran laugh, and then regret it again, and then fall back into the pile of bedrolls he had been settled into with a groan.

With Alistair gone, Kyrn handed over much of her haul to Leliana to work with; she'd already caught two rabbits, assembled a huge bundle of herbs and mushrooms and filled their cauldron with water. For a small, lithe creature, she was surprisingly hardy.

The rest of her foraging turned out to be a pile of sticks, which Zevran squinted at as she flicked out a stout little knife and got to work making something of them. "You're not going to like this. I should know, I cracked my ribs once as a child."

She was right, and he had more than an hour to contemplate her treatment, watching as she smoothed the sticks to straight braces, boiled bandages and had to help him out of his armor to fit the splints around his stomach. The deftness of her hands was a wonder, surely, but he couldn't appreciate it as she nudged the rods into place and wrapped the bandages around and around, prodding the same nerves over and again around his ribs to stabilize them.

"You know," He growled as she tugged to tighten the holding knots. "You could make a good living!" He winced, growled and relaxed as she finished, now stuck with parallel columns of discomfort all around his midsection. "there are men who pay a great deal in the Free Marches for a beautiful woman to cause them pain."

Kyrn snorted, laying his shirt over him like a blanket, giving up on trying to get it back on him while the makeshift corset was there. She seemed to stare to the right, as if contemplating the sleeve that was still unmended from the week before. "I don't _like_ hurting people," she answered.

"Could have fooled me," Zevran muttered. He gazed sleepily back at her shocked expression as the pain finally eased away, his hunger and the wolfs blood giving him ample distraction, yet not enough to get that wounded expression out of his mind.


	3. Maleficar

"He isn't a boy, he's a monster!" Alistair snarled. Never before had Kyrn seen such an outraged expression on his face. When he looked at the boy Connor, it was not with mortal eyes, but the fury of a Templar facing the Abyss.

"The demon in Connor needs to be destroyed," Jowan soothed shakily, "Killing Connor is the-," he swallowed, " _easiest_ option, surely… but… But there is another way… a Mage could enter the Fade and disrupt the connection between them."

"Really?" Alistair snapped, waving a hand around to room for some glimmer of recognition, "We're taking the word of a _Blood Mage_ , now? Surely, nothing could go wrong with THIS plan!"

"So you could enter the fade and save my boy?" Ysolde pleaded, "And no one has to die?"

"It's," Jowan sighed, "Not so simple. There's a great deal of power needed. Normally, if we were at the Circle, we could draw on our stores of Lyrium, and other Mages. But in these circumstances, I would need blood."

Kyrn's attention pricked up at the change in the tone of his voice. The Keepers were known to dabble in blood magic. Merril, their Keeper-in-training, was herself quite accomplished in those arts.

"A lot of blood," Jowan hesitantly continued, "The donor… would not survive."

Leliana looked pale at the thought of it. She had been one of Jowan's strongest supporters, extolling that everyone should be given a chance to redeem themselves in the Maker's eyes. Even she couldn't stand by and watch one life be exchanged for another's salvation.

Bann Teagan snapped an immediate, "Out of the question!" In response, but the boy's mother looked more solemn about the possibility. "So," she whispered, "It is either me, or my son that is the sacrifice? Let it be me, then…"

"Ysolde!" Bann Teagan cried out, "It's unthinkable! What would your husband think?!"

"He isn't here! He isn't making this decision! I am!" She declared passionately, turning back to Jowan, "I will do this. Either someone kills my son to destroy that thing inside him, or I give my life so that my son can live. Let it be me, then."

"You'd turn to Blood magic?" Alistair balked, "How can more evil be of any help here? Two wrongs don't make a right!"

The conversation exploded into bickering and quickly grew to a loud crescendo that sent Kyrn's mabari Mien'Tarel into a quiet frenzied whining, swiping his paws over his head. Kyrn stood still in the midst of the emotional torrent, overwhelmed by the chaotic bias on both sides fighting for the final say in an already terrible situation. The only two others silent were Morrigan, with a contemptuous sneer on her face, and Oghren, who's only opinion had been, "I'm not drunk enough to deal with this kinda thing."

Even Zevran got a jab in, sneering, "What's one more death to heap on top of a whole village, no? Maybe we should just make it two? Or perhaps three?"

Jowan backed towards the wall with fear widening his eyes. Kyrn couldn't take any more, and finally shouted over the dim, "What is WRONG with all of you?!"

At her accusatory shout, they all paused, looking back at her. The silence, broken by the energetic crackle of the roaring hearth settled the decision squarely on her shoulders.

"Fine," Bann Teagan had snapped, "What would you have us do?"

Kyrn shook her head, now on the road towards Lake Callanhad, wishing she had gotten better sleep in the eerie halls of Castle Redcliffe. Even a full night in a surprisingly soft feather bed wasn't enough to overcome two straight days awake, battling the undead and the fears of a town under siege.

"What indeed?" Kyrn grumbled, "All day readying Redcliffe to defend herself. All that night fending off wave after wave of undead fiends. The next day spent cutting through their lines, just to reach the castle and find out the task is not done until we kill a defenseless boy!" Kyrn threw up her hands, thinking she spoke to herself.

"Oh, I would not say defenseless," Morrigan mused, jogging to come up to matched pace with Kyrn where she lead the party.

It would have been several days to The Circle tower if Kyrn did not know the woods as well as she did. Leading the group had also allowed her to keep an honest scowl on her face without having to answer to any of the group's concerned looks until now.

Morrigan continued to muse, with a click of her staff and a whispering melody of magical talismans swinging about her. "I cannot imagine how you keep such a quiet tongue amongst those ignorant fools. I was there, and it took all my reserves of will not to strike them all down and consider the human breed much improved."

Kyrn found her feet unable to go forward, As she stood still and gawked at the Witch's bare back incredulously. "You can't be serious?"

"Deathly so," Morrigan chided, turning on her heel to squint merrily back at her. "Fools are fools, whether they old or young. Tis' made worse when the fool is a _mage_. A _possessed,_ reckless, emotional and very powerful mage, I might add."

With a gulp, Kyrn finally responded, "Well, we needed to contact The Circle of Mages anyhow-"

"And what then?" Morrigan turned on her heel and fixed her with an appraising gaze, "Say they choose to overlook their fear of Apostates and blood magic? Say they can make it back in time? What fate do you expect for the boy?"

"He'll live-"

"In exile," Morrigan finished for her. "Mages cannot rule in Fereldan. I know the Dalish respect magic. They hold the talent in high regard, and train those people to be leaders and ambassadors. But the humans?" She glanced to Leliana, who had caught up to them. The bard shot them both a wary, irate, glance in passing. "They deny all mages any status. The boy was born a prince, and you would doom him to live out his life as the Circle's most ostracized prisoner."

Kyrn stared back at her in horror as Morrigan continued, "Is _that_ what you were intending?"

"I-" Kyrn stammered, "I didn't intend that at all! But it does not matter! His mother was willing to sacrifice herself to save him! I gave her my word-"

"Fine, then," Morrigan frowned, striking her staff into the ground to enunciate the end of the conversation. "But do not blame me when the old ingrates are useless in the battle ahead. You should stay focused on the Archdemon, and the horde we still have to defeat-"

Zevran circled around behind Kyrn, gripping the side of her hip for a moment as he swung around to shoot Morrigan a playfully agitating grin from behind Kyrn's opposite shoulder. "The witch's scowl alone could destroy the Archdemon," Zevran's soothing croon cut in. Morrigan answered with a feral scowl, and decidedly canine show of teeth. Zevran only laughed it off, "See there? We're sure to triumph!"

Morrigan shot them both one last injured scowl before storming off along the game trail they had been following all morning. Leliana passed them by with a "What just happened there?" glance to her and Zevran, but otherwise acted unawares.

"I know I will regret saying it, but I agree with the witch," Alistair began, pausing to catch his breath. "What if something happens while we're distracted by this hopeless goose chase?"

"I left my Mabari and Oghren behind to handle the situation," Kyrn replied, shaking her head, still unable to clear the sleepy fog from her mind.

"The dog, at least, will stay alert for trouble," Zevran snarked.

Alistair snorted, sharing a rare smirk with the Assassin he had previously wanted dead. "That's true."

Zevran's hand swept over the small of her back, brushed over her elbow and lingered on her wrist, before sliding down to entwine his fingers in hers for a quick, reassuring squeeze.

The motion was more delicate than she thought him capable of, and as his fingers left hers she already found herself yearning to feel the warmth of his skin again, revelling in the scent of warm leather and sandalwood he left in his wake.

She breathed deep, taking in the cold crisp green scent of pine forest around them, and regretting the way her mind drifted back to Tamlen, remembering how the forest had smelled so fresh and full of promise that morning, before their lives had caved in around them.

As she opened her eyes, Leliana had paused to stare back at her, and Alistair was waving towards the path, impatience souring his features, "Come now, we'll never reach the circle in time at this rate."

"Would you like that?" Kyrn snapped, her reverie ruined as she stormed towards him.

"What?" Alistair balked, "I didn't say-"

"You've already said exactly what we SHOULD do with the boy, Shemlen," Kyrn accused.

Alistair glared back at her at the use of that slur, though she knew he had no clue what it truly meant. "I did not-"

"Then do not speak," Kyrn snarled, eye to eye with him until Leliana bodily shoved them apart.

"Enough!" Leliana snapped, "What is with you two? You're acting like children!" She gripped Kyrn's upper arms, holding her at length while Alistair backed away with a disgruntled sneer.

Kyrn relaxed into Leliana's hold, rolling her eyes towards the Orlesian rogue with the force of two days pent up exhaustion. All the response she could manage was a long sigh.

"Do you want to tell me what's got you so uptight?" Leliana soothed, rubbing her hands down Kyrn's arms reassuringly.

The endearment felt like hot metal poured under her skin. Quicky crossing her arms, Kyrn slapped her grip away. Tamlen's soft gaze assailed her from Leliana's eyes. Her own words, gently coaxing him that they should let the human scavengers go echoed back in her own ears. "No." Kyrn growled. "I'm fine." She knew where that soft-heartedness had gotten her; where it had gotten them both.

"Leave me be!" She commanded, "I'll catch up!"

With one last hurt glance back in her direction, Leliana took to the trail again. From behind them, they all heard the distinct sound of a boot connecting with a tree trunk, repeatedly.

With her anger spent, Kyrn fell forward until her forehead connected with the rough bark, cursing under her breath, "Fen'Harel ghilan'him… what IS wrong with me?"


	4. Animal Instincts

After the horror show that the Circle Tower had turned out to be, Zevran wasn't surprised at the way everyone had slept like the dead the day after. Only Kyrn had seemed eager to leave the relative safety of the Lake's interior to sleep under the stars instead. With her urging for a swift return to Castle Redcliffe, their new comrade Wynne in tow and the stricken boy mage to consider, they had made a half day's progress back along the King's Highway before they were forced to make camp or watch one of them collapse on the hard stone causeway.

Zevran found himself awake in the quiet half-light just before dawn, as he often did, listening intently for the sound of creaking floorboards or errant breathing. There were neither, though Alistair did snore in sporadic, ear-grinding bouts, and Leliana had a curious propensity to recite poetry in her sleep (though most of it was incomprehensible).

While the night had been an ongoing symphony of bircalls, frog choruses and an uncountable number of insects, the first sign of morning light had softened them all until there was little to break the silence but the faintest of breezes stirring the air. Unease finally pulled him from the warmth of his blankets. He dressed quickly and circled the camp, surprised as he always was that there was no guard on his tent, no nightly watch, despite the diligent Mabari being too far away to save them from an ambush, or a turncoat like himself. Kyrn's was the only tent unoccupied. The flaps were up, and her bedroll already neatly rolled and tied tight.

"Well, she isn't fleeing this dreadful lot without her bedding," Zevran thought.

Following her wasn't difficult. She had shown him many tricks in the past two weeks, little telltale signs of life moving through the forests, or the direction game were traveling by the depth of the prints alone. From the look of the crushed foliage leading to the west of them, it seemed she wasn't interested in hiding her trail at all.

With a few minutes brisk walk, he spotted her, crouched low over a fallen log, staring intently at something he couldn't yet see. As his feet cackled through a clump of dried ferns, her hand snapped up to point at him, pinching her index and thumb together without breaking her gaze.

"I can smell you there, Zevran," Kyrn stated calmly.

The brevity and even tone startled him enough to chuckle, "My, that is unkind of you-"

"You're standing upwind of us," Kyrn explained.

"Us?" Zevran paused, finally taking in his surroundings fully. The breeze had picked up since he'd awoken, crackling through the undergrowth and dying fall leaves like a fire popping over green wood. Just barely above that natural whisper, he finally heard the growl. Something was very near them both, snarling out a warning.

He circled around behind her warily, painfully aware of all the noisy floral refuse that littered the ground between them. As he looked over her shoulder, he found himself staring into the ravenous gaze of a wretched half-starved wolf. It's coat was dotted with mud and dried sap, and damp from sweat or rushing through dew-laden undergrowth, he couldn't tell.

As their eyes met, it tipped its head up and snarled anew, snapping it's jaws in agitation. "Look away, Zevran," came Kyrn's calm, quietly commanding tone again. Despite his pride, he found himself glancing to her, watching her backside rise and fall as she took pains to keep her breaths even despite their dangerous proximity. She wasn't wearing her usual armor, either: just her odd Dalish small-clothes, and a satchel strung over one shoulder. Her bow and arrows had been laid aside behind the log she was perched over.

The same hand that had pointed grasped his hand gently, tugging to coax him to crouch down behind her. The wolf's gaze snapped to her and back to him again, renewing its threatened pitch. Zevran could feel a cold sweat beading up on his neck as he watched the creature. It was smaller and leaner than it's peers that had continuously tried to ambush them on the road, but it had a fierce determination in its posture that was unlike the rabid wolves that were slowly falling to the Blight all around them.

Kyrn grasped up a flimsy switch from the forest floor with her right hand, still grasping Zevran's hand in her left. She tapped it's shoulder lightly, drawing it's agitation back. Their eyes were locked, almost unblinking as she dropped the switch, and slowly reached for the satchel at her hip.

"Durg," Kyrn called out flatly, pulling up a recently killed rabbit from the satchel. It rushed forward a step, saliva beginning to drip from its fangs. "Fen durg am." Kryn growled out, and the creature pawed the ground, but ceased growling, and backed away again.

She tossed the rabbit, and the wolf caught it in it's teeth before it could even touch the ground. It tore into the small meal hungrily, shredding the fur and snapping up the muscle in guttural, growling bites. Zevran had killed men and woman throughout his career and never before felt the squeamish weight fall through his stomach that he did right now watching one wild creature tear another apart.

Kyrn's fingers slid away from his, and she inched forward with a cupped hand towards the wolf's head. It paused mid-bite to snarl at her with hairs and viscera still stuck in it's teeth, until she cupped her hand sideways and circled her reach downwards, until her hand lay palm-up on the ground, just a foot away from rabbit that was now no more than bones and bloody sinews.

After it had cracked as much marrow as it could from the larger bones, it studied Kyrn silently with eyes no longer savagely hungry. It leaned forward with a nervous hesitance, licked her hand delicately, and then bolted into the underbrush at a rapid speed.

All Zevran's muscles relaxed at once, releasing a breath he did not even notice he had been holding, tight with a primal fear he had rarely experienced. "What was that?" Zevran finally choked out.

Kyrn shook her head, blinking her eyes rapidly as if trying to shake off a dream. "Vir Adahlen… the way of the wood. I," Kyrn closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, "it's something I've gotten better at, since I was little. I could tell he was out here. He's been circling us for almost a week now, since I left the Mabari at Redcliffe…. a wolf that patient, I knew I had to either deal with him, or befriend him."

"So," Zevran drawled out, "You chose to befriend him? A Wolf?"

With slow, languid motions Kyrn finally stood up from her crouch, wincing from muscles sore from stillness and tightly coiled intent. A quick shiver ran through her, like a dog shaking off water, before she exhaled and replied, "I got lucky. He accepted the arrangement."

"Besides," She continued as Zevran looked at the leftover bits of bloody fur and shattered bones that were all that remained of their standoff that morning. "He isn't the first lone wolf I've taken in."


	5. Not The Same as Whence You Came

No one wished to dwell on the strange visions within the Fade, nor the events that had transpired at the Tower of Magi. Yet somehow, they kept being brought up. Leliana, especially, seemed to think they had some kind of spiritual meaning. "The Maker guided us to safety! I know it, I prayed for his wisdom even from within the Fade!"

Kyrn did her best to stay away from the banter. She had no desire at all to tell them what she had seen, at least what she could remember of it. Duncan had stood before her, declaring them triumphant, asking her to lay down her weapons, to throw off her duty. "Rest and celebrate with us," It lulled in the Rivaini's voice. The demon must not have delved far into her mind, because it seemed completely shocked at the rage that came over her. Remembering the ruthlessness with which she dispatched the old Warden still made her shake. She had been addled, she did not know what was real and what wasn't at the time, but that did not stop her from striking down the man Alistair remembered fondly like a father with great satisfaction.

She could remember brief glimpses of the rest of her journey, seeking out the others and fighting against strange apparitions of the Beyond. It hurt her head to think on it too long, and then the fatigue of the past week would redouble upon her, and it was all she could do to keep her head up against the tension and heaviness that enveloped her.

"It is of little use to dwell on that time," Wynn explained to them all. "Without a Mage's innate attributes, you will no more remember the Fade than a fish could hope to walk on land. The incompatibility lies deep in the soul. There is no use in fighting it for a glimpse of a lie, anyhow."

Still, when Mahariel would look across the campfire at Alistair, she was struck by raw agitation. Her heart fluttered at the memory of him happily playing with a swarm of children, all of them calling out, "uncle!" and arguing for the chance to hug and greet him as he was reunited with a long-lost family. Then a shard of grief and guilt struck through her so strong she still coughed at the thought of Duncan's blood on her hands, shouting her vengeance against the order that had simultaneously saved her life and destroyed it.

She tried to console herself that it wasn't his real blood on her hands. A Darkspawn cut him down, not her. Even if he _was_ a murderer. Even if she _had_ wished it, deep in her heart.

*,*,*

Despite the armor and supplies that had to be swapped out as the days proceeded, Zevran still kept his two Crow Blades. Antivan blades were prized across all of Thedas, and the Crows' blades were the most prized of Antiva. Many blacksmiths claimed to produce the finely honed blades, selling to any nervous Fereldan longshoreman or Freemarcher trader they could skin a coin from. Some of those smiths found themselves blackmailed, dead or worse if they truly came close to the secret recipes behind their particular tools of trade. Many others were left alone because no real assassin would ever confuse the the sharpened pan-handles they sold in back-alleys for the fine sheen of an artisan blade made within the small network of artists the Crows brokered with.

Of course, many Fereldans, accustomed to castle-wrought steel that could stab a hundred Darkspawn and come out just as grey and useable as the day it was finished would balk at the care and maintenance a true Crow blade required. For starters, the blades were not true steel at all, but iron, folded with a few rare minerals in rituals more complex than those they had witnessed in the Circle Tower. This meant they rusted at the bat of an eyelash and needed to be oiled, sharpened and honed daily to stay in peak condition.

Normally, the practice brought Zevran a strange kind of peace. The blades were never perfectly straight, instead they were curved to flow through the victim more readily than the poisons that often adorned them. This meant you had to take care with the grinding blocks to resist altering the shape as you refined the edge. Most men who had not forged their own blades would never bother, but part of the key of a quick kill was to have iron folded so that the edge was a razor blade when properly sharpened. Even if you didn't take perfect care of them, the edges would chip and splinter along the thin edge with each strike, keeping them lethal and cruel throughout a prolonged fight or against a heavily armored opponent.

Between the darkspawn, the templars, the undead, and the blight-crazed feral beasts, He was forced to repeat his ritual once a day, sometimes several times to keep the pair of daggers in good condition. What had once been three inches wide was two now, the flat face of the blade nicked, scarred and dappled with dark oxide marks.

But the edge, at least, was still good.

Zevran sighed quietly, flicking the dagger back and forth to catch his own shadowy silhouette reflected back in it's surface. Small glints opposing the edge told him he was nearly finished, just a little more to wear away before he could hone the edge, make it true and ready for the next kill.

"The next kill," He thought somberly, remembering the faces of his forming peers leering over him, laughing amongst themselves as the pulleys cranked, inching the ropes tighter, straining his joints against their sockets.

"We'll break you yet, apprentice," Taliesen had joked, urging the other Crow to turn the wheel again, jeering at his attempts to laugh in their faces, deny the pain.

It was a farce of reality, he understood that now, but his bones still felt stretched, his muscles still ached and he woke up itching at the phantom rope burns around his wrists in his sleep. He'd longed for their retribution, in a way, but facing it head on awoke a feeling in him he couldn't quite place. Was this unease anger, or perhaps self-loathing?

When Kyrn had burst through, shattering the walls of the torture chamber to myst with her presence, he had felt something completely intangible. The way she had brushed past his attackers, and reached for him-

"I'm sick of this!" Kyrn's voice yelled from across the courtyard. The huge entry doors of of Castle Redcliffe swung open to slam against the outside wall, and the metallic drum of Alistair's boots dashed behind her.

Zevran leaned back into the shadow of the outer wall where he had been working, not eager to catch either of their eyes in the midst of another of their fights. Especially when it was far more interesting to listen and gain a little insight.

"You can't just storm out of the throne room!" Alistair called to her, rushing to keep up as she took the steps two at a time. 'There are rules!"

"Yes," Kyrn snarled, whipping around to growl back at him, "I should know, I keep breaking all of them."

"Hey! I didn't say that!" Alistair stammered, skidding to a halt.

"I will tell you again what I told everyone inside." Kyrn repeated, articulating her words with clipped animosity dripping through her words, "We are leaving tomorrow for the damned mountains. I will be back here tomorrow morning. I've agreed to all their petty requests, now let me be!"

"Petty?" Alistair snapped, "You just martyred me in front of my Uncle's family, signed me up for a future I don't want, and I'm being _petty_?"

"Not you, I didn't say-" Kyrn backpedalled.

"Look, you cannot simply chew out a room full of Nobles and leave it like that! You need to come back, and apologize-!"

"For what?!" Kyrn shouted, "They want us to fix all their problems! Now they have us searching after some tall tale in the frozen mountains, when they COULD be rallying the Bannorn, and we could be seeking out the Dalish-"

"Oh, I'm sure your clan can wait-" Alistair snapped, and from the look that immediately lit up his face, immediately regretted it.

"My clan. Is. gone." Kryn enunciated viciously. "But I suppose all us elves just look the same to you?"

Alistair cringed and stammered, "I didn't say. That's not what I meant!"

With a final shout, Kyrn turned away and sprinted for the gates, "I am leaving now. I will be back tomorrow!"

"Mahariel!" Alistair called desperately, but she was already bounding past the portucullis. "Mahariel!" He called again, "Kyrn!"

Zevran followed her past the drawbridge, his ear for gossip getting the better of him

"Not the warm reception you expected?" Zevran asked.

Kyrn bottled upright, spinning around like like a ghost had tapped her on the shoulder. "Zevran!" She startled. "You heard all that?"

"Only the parts you were shouting at top of your lungs," He joked.

"Sylaise protect me," Kyrn muttered, "I must stop speaking in public. I only make a fool of myself."

"So," Zevran asked, eager to hear details, "What of your reinforcements against the Darkspawn? That was why we came here, no?"

Kyrn grimaced, a hand to her forehead like a headache was coming on. "We saved the child, saved the mother, and now they want us to save Earl Eamon before they'll agree to anything! They insist that we go to the Frostback mountains to investigate some Cult in Haven, but they were perfectly happy to talk as if the man is already dead, and ask for Alistair to step up as King!" She threw her hands in the air, and paced in a small circle. "I hate the mountains," She added angrily.

"Really?" Zevran asked. "And what of Jowan?"

"Jowan?" Kyrn replied uncertainly.

"Yes, the blood mage. He's the reason the boy was saved, no?"

"Saved? He was the reason the boy was possesed in the first place! First Enchanter Irving and the Circle of Magi saved the boy, not that apologetic psycopath!"

Zevran winced. Kyrn backed away, suddenly furitive.

"Fine, what of him, then?"

"What of him?" Kyrn parroted back. "It's not my-"

"Come now!" Zevran smirked. "They've asked you to make every other decision up until this point. They must have asked your advice."

Kyrn snapped back, "Murder is Murder! He came here to poison someone, and then look at all the people killed because of his cowardice! How could I defend a man like that-"

She caught his steely gaze, and looked away, suddenly worrying the shoulder of her armor. Without catching his gaze, she waved a hand dismissively as realization dawned on her face, draining the color from her cheeks.

She wordlessly smacked her palm against her forehead, and with a unintelligible mutter, she turned and sprinted out of Redcliffe, heading for the foothills that ringed the lakeside town.

"Indeed," Zevran whispered, "How can you?"


	6. A Chill Worse Than Death

Two nights had cooled Kyrn's temper, but dampened her spirit considerably. When Alistair and the rest of their merry band had greeted her on the road out of Redcliffe, she hadn't felt the energy to say much to them.

Leliana had been surprisingly gentle, in her way, asking her advice on which route to take, what trails they might follow, but she had none to give.

"I do not know these mountains," Was all she felt like contributing. Her clan had ranged far to the north and south and east, but the Aravels could never traverse the steep switchbacks or rocky slopes. Besides, they followed the lead of their betters - the Halla, and those keen creatures avoided ascending into the harsh and unforgiving Frostbacks.

"Far wiser than us, for certain," Kyrn thought as she held her blanket around herself, shivering without knowing why as she stared into the campfire dismally.

She had been thinking back to the tower, feeling her own words echoing in her mind over and over again, as they had rallied against the Templars who planned to whipe out the entire population of their Circle.

"What kind of deranged mind invented THIS?" She'd cried to the man who coldly described wholesale murder as 'annulment'. "Too dangerous to let out, but you're too cowardly to kill them, so you lock them up worse than prisoners? For their whole lives? Such cowardice the Shemlens show to their own kind! No wonder you treat others like dirt, when you distain your own clansmen this way!"

Her harsh words had sparked some kind of sympathy in the Templars, for they let them through on the terrible mission of sifting the possessed from the redeemable like so much wheat and chaff, but it had also nursed an animosity between her and Alistair for days, like mushrooms growing on damp wood no one could bring themselves to burn and clear.

They gained Wynn's aid, an able healer and wise human woman, but lost so many other mages in the process. Kyrn couldn't defend blood magic after what she'd seen, nor could she explain how she had broken the spell of the sloth demon. But they had prevailed, and SOME lives had been saved, even if it seemed a high cost for Connor.

"I need to speak to you," Alistair stated curtly, standing over her where she was curled near the fire, trying to will her mind to quiet.

"What is it?" Kyrn grumbled sleepily.

"Alone," Alistair snapped.

Kyrn opened one eye, squinting up at him with exhaustion in her glare. "Hmm. No."

"Good, then, wait, 'no'?" Alistair shook his head, his tightly wound facade crumbling to confusion. "What do you mean, just 'no'?"

"You can speak to me here. Where it isn't bloody cold."

"Cold?" Alistair mulled over the word, as if it seemed out of place. "Fine. Alright," He huffed out a sigh. "I wanted to… apologize… for how I've been acting."

"You?" Kyrn sat up groggilly. "You don't have to apologize. I'm the one who's been a green-skinned tick for the past week."

"I, what?" He chuckled, "I don't know what they means, but apology equally accepted." He knelt down, prodding a pebble on the ground with a stick in an absent manner. "You didn't have to save Arl Eamon's family. You could have sacrificed Isolde, or Connor… hell, you could have turned away and not helped any of them. They certainly didn't give you much reason to-"

"We need their help against the Darkspawn," Kyrn shrugged.

"But you did. Help them, I mean." Alistair looked ruffled by the interruption. "They're… really the only family I have, even if it's… barely a family at that. So thank you."

Kyrn stared at him helplessly, unsure what more to say. "I… I'm glad to have helped Alistair. Really. There's so much darkness right now. So much loss. We must save everyone we can."

Alistair beamed back at her, "True words. And I have you here to knock me in the head again if I forget it!"

Kyrn smiled weakly as he walked away, a strange little skip in his step as he returned to his tent. "Did he really need me alone to say all that?" Kyrn chuckled under her breath, slumping back to the ground to return to trying to sleep.

"Mahariel," Morrigan called out from the dark, her eyes flashing like a wild animal as she approached the fire. "I would speak with you as well."

Kyrn sat up, the blanket thrown off by her agitated motion. "What now?"

"While I am," Morrigan licked her lips, chewing over her words before she continued, "remorseful about my suggestions concerning the mages in the tower, I must ask why we are going so far out of our way to chase this… fable."

"This again?"

"Chasing a ghost of Andraste to save one man? Surely, Our time is better spent-"

"Look," Kyrn explained, "If you don't want to go, then stay back in Redcliffe! There's already five of us going, and you'll have Ogrehn and the dog to keep you company-"

Morrigan scowled back at her, taking more insult than Kyrn had intended. "Fine," she replied coldly, "Perhaps I will."

Mahariel chewed on her words a moment, before her anger got the better of her, "FINE!" She snapped back, long after Morrigan had returned to her own tent, far from the shared campfire, but yet always perfectly comfortable in those tatters she called clothing.

"Would anyone else like to talk with me?" Kyrn shouted, spinning to look at each of the faces peeking back at her. Leliana shook her head, and ducked back into her own tent. Alistair gave her a confused, appraising stare, but Zevran actually laughed. It was just a small chuckle, but she saw it, paired with a cheeky squint that screamed disrespect before he too returned to his tent.

"Are you done, young lady?" Wynn asked with stern politeness, chilling Kyrn's anger to ash again.

"Yes," Kyrn grumbled, and thumped back to her bedroll, scooching closer to the fire again, shivering for warmth despite the searing heat.

Her thoughts coiled around Zevran's smile, feeling anxious and agitated without real reason. The discontent repeated and ricocheted in her mind, taking on a melody all it's own, grumbling and growling and stomping like a march of shadows clanging swords into a war hymn.

Soon the sounds were a song, an intangible rhythm formed from hate and barbed wire and the smell of death, multiplying and cascading over her. She, a monstrous It, looked up from the rioting bodies around her, up and up to a form that shadowed hundreds of her peers. It's skin was a mass of vicious black fluids, scales like chipped obsidian, and weeping sores. It vibrated the whole cavern with dark, loathsome energy before turning to her and all the twisted creatures with her and roaring so loud that it drowned out the song, became the song, drowned out her own heartbeat, that shook through her, faster and faster, until-

Kyrn screamed, sitting up, sweating and shaking, unable to stop screaming until the song died out in her ears. A sob stuck in her throat, leaving her shaking as the terror of what she had felt herself become faded as the reality of the night around her finally pronounced itself in the sound of frogs and cicadas, crickets and the soft rustle of leaves.

"Bad dreams?" Alistair called out, already standing outside his tent in his nightshirt and gambeson, face pale with the same realization she felt.

"It was the archdemon," Kyrn cleared her throat enough to whisper. "I'd seen it before, but it was so far away then." She shivered one last time, a shudder coursing through her from nose to toes at remembering the unending army they had witnessed in the depths of that ancient Thaig.

With a heavy sigh, he plunked down near her, putting his hands to the fire to warm himself. "Yes, this is the less… glamorous part of being a Grey Warden, you see."

"Less glamorous?" Kyrn shrieked, "That's all you have to say-?"

"Keep your voice down," Alistair hissed, "Look, the joining, drinking the tainted blood, it… changes you. The way it lets us track the Darkspawn? Sense their motives and their movements? That… also… gives us a connection to the Archdemon. That's why you heard when it spoke to the Darkspawn."

"What?" Kyrn stammered, "What are you saying?"

"Slowly but surely, it gets into your head. The taint makes us stronger, lets us fight them, but eventually, it will kill you, if you're lucky. If you're not lucky… well… even with the Blight, you've got at least another twenty years to figure that part out."

"What part?" Kyrn snapped, stumbling to her feet to back away from him, "Are you saying I'm going to become like Ruck? Why did I even let you make me drink that… I'm so stupid," Kyrn cursed.

"This is the sacrifice we make to ensure that others-"

"I didn't MAKE a sacrifice!" Kyrn growled, glowering down at him, "I WAS sacrificed. Duncan said he could save my life. But I guess it's just a different kind of slavery, then? Dance to the order's tune, then die a slow, horrible death. Is that it?"

"Would you just listen to me!" Alistair hissed again, "It's not that simple, the order has to keep this secret-"

"Hiding behind the Order again?" Kyrn shoved him back as he tried to step nearer. She spun around, and began to shout to the camp at large. "Hey, in case anyone had missed this fact while we've been travelling together: I was forced to drink darkspawn blood and now I'm cursed to clean up all your problems!"

"How can you be so flippant? These are secrets of the Grey W-"

"Do you think I CARE about Weisshaupt?" Kyrn stood, "Weisshaupt isn't HERE. Weisshaupt can't HELP US. It's just YOU and ME and a handful of equally crazy people against an entire Darkspawn horde! How much do Duncan's secrets matter now?"

They glared back at each other in fixed silence, feet planted until Alistair let out a quiet, guttural cough of curses and returned to his tent. Kyrn turned back to the rest of the party, meeting their gazes with wild-eyed confrontation in her posture. Wynn scoffed, waved a hand at her dismissively and returned to sleep, and Leliana shook her head, her worry tucked into a stoney smile.

Morrigan was already away from the fire and working hard at ignoring all their antics, leaving only Zevran, who continued to stare at her with an assessing tilt of his head that made her wrap the blanket tighter around herself. "What are you looking at, Antivan?"

"A beautiful, but deranged woman," he laughed, turning away and closing his tent flap again. She stared back like her eye could bore holes the canvas and make sense of his flippancy, but they couldn't, any more than she could make sense of the Blight and the taint and Alistair's insipid devotion to a dead man's cause.

"Void take me," Kyrn muttered under her breath, and flopped back into her place near the fire to try and get a little more rest before dawn.


	7. Cold and Not So Alone

Morrigan, true to her word, had set off back to Redcliffe in the middle of the night, leaving only a bare trampled patch in the grass to mark that she had been there to witness Mahariel's meltdown the night before. No one said a word about it, but her absence marked the beginning of a dark quiet that hung over the whole group for the rest of that day.

Mahariel had stumbled constantly throughout their journey into the Frostbacks towards the remote hamlet of Haven. Zevran had watched the usually sure-footed ranger catch herself time and again as the trail turned to gravel hidden in loose icy dirt, or roots had reveal themselves beneath the scattered patches of snow that would appear in the cold shadows of the south-facing switchbacks.

Her eyes were dark, her complexion pale and her breaths shallow as they ascended the first set of foothills, shivered noticeably against the cold despite the blanket she held around herself as they set up. The traveling pack looked more outrageous against her small frame than ever, like it's weight was redoubling as her own energy waned.

There was nothing he could do, and though he wasn't faring well himself, used to warm dry days stretched across countless miles of ocean shore, he would have offered to take some weight off her if he thought she would even acknowledge the kindness. As it was, she had a hunted, shifty expression in between long, tired silences. It was like the woman he had failed to kill three weeks ago and the woman he traveled with today were different people entirely.

"If the taint burns this fast, pray I'm never offered the Warden's path," Zevran contemplated mournfully.

They camped early, settling into a rare flat patch just before a pass between two peaks. Long shadows drew over the steep encircling slopes while the sky stayed bright and cloudless, letting them know there were still hours to go until the sun truly set, somewhere far away that they could not see from within their stone walls.

Despite her obvious exhaustion, Kyrn was still able to round up a few alpine hares and and a huge bundle of some kind of leafy mountain vegetation. The greens were round and strangely numerous like thick chewy clover. When he stole a small bit to abate his hunger, he immediately spat it out. The taste was foul and acerbic until she set a pot to boiling. It was as he watched her gutting and dressing the hares, then cooking with a sullen persistence that he thought about how they all took her for granted. No one asked her to seek out food, they simply ate what she cooked, often without even a thank you or pat on the back for the effort of hunting and foraging.

"Not that you could pat her on the back," Zevran chuckled to himself, taking a hesitant sip of the broth she had made for them. "She would probably cut off your hand for the insult of touching her." The leaves that had been bitter and painful to eat raw were amazing once cooked. It reminded him of pepper and lemon peel, and with the rabbit cooked down with the snow, it was far better than most of the gruel they had choked down at Taverns along the road.

It was with her efforts on his mind that he drifted off to an early sleep, lulled by the usual back and forth bickering as Wynn asked Leliana what audacity brought her to claim the Maker spoke to her, Alistair answered that her piety was commendable, and Kyrn inadvertently insulted all of them by calling the Maker something like "the Usurper god."

Zevran always felt fortunate that his training had never affected his sleep. In many ways, it had actually improved it. The rhythm of the night around him, whether it was the clattering of children playing and pots being scrubbed in the back alleys of Antiva or the chaos of an insect swarm that often hung over the low marshes in the Korcari wilds, he seemed to be able to pick out what persisted, and pay it no mind.

When a muffled cry broke the silence of the glade, though, he found himself awake, senses keen and the blood pumping in his chest before he was clearly aware that he was not still dreaming. He was already sitting up and retying the armor he wore to bed out of self preservation as the cry stopped. A string of whispered curses followed, and the snap of canvas and strike of soft shoes racing away from camp.

Zevran picked up his favored blades, shoved his feet into his beleaguered Fereldan boots and crept out into the dark of night, shivering as his body railed against the cold, painfully dry air that clung in the windless night.

The sky overhead was cloudless, filled with so many stars that it seemed more sparkle than blackness, filling the world with a grey glow reflecting back over the hoarfrost that had traced over every surface available. It made itself known with each footstep, crunching with agonizing echoes in the still pines, only muffled by the carelessness that his prey took racing through the sparse wooded slope downhill from their camp.

As he listened a moment, he traced their path, forming a long arc around him. He set his feet into the ground and slid down, wincing at the spray of gravel that roared down ahead of him. Their steps sprinted towards him, and he waited, anticipated, and dropped down, daggers drawn.

Kyrn's face shook him out of his instincts, and he turned in mid-fall, catching her boot in his side as she dropped to the ground to defend herself and knock him aside. A few heartbeats later, and he was grunting on the ground, staring back at her in surprise equal to her own, glad that neither of them had screamed.

She sat up, breathing heavy with panic bright in her eyes as she finally pointed to him, "You could have killed me!" She hissed.

"You defend yourself well enough," Zevran chuckled, and then winced as he prodded his side, realizing she had caught him in the same row of ribs still freshly knit from the ogre a few weeks past.

She caught his look, and scrambled to her feet to offer him a hand, "Ir Abelas. I didn't mean to worry anyone."

"What are you doing out here?" Zevran asked, just before a tiny breeze wafted past, and sent a chill up his spine reminding him just how ludicrous their gear was for this terrain.

The cold struck her at the same time, though the shiver stayed, and her words chattered out unevenly, "Nightmares. Couldn't sleep. Thought I w-would run. Try to-to tire myself… o-out."

"You should have just said so," Zevran laughed, striding forward to rub his hands over her arms before he could stop himself. He was shocked to find when his skin touched hers, she was not frozen, but burning up, clammy like she had been sweating for a while. "I know some very fun, very tiring things we could do together."

Kyrn stared back at him, stiff as a pole, like she was holding her breath against the shivering. It wasn't the first time she had clammed up at his advances. In the past, he had chased after many difficult women for no more reason than the challenge, but those women weren't also the single line of defense between himself and a darkspawn blade in the belly.

With a regretful chuckle, he threw up his hands and backed away. He only wanted to head back to camp with a small piece of dignity intact after his foolish assault. He never expected that she would pull him back and shove her lips against his, hot as brimstone and just as dangerous. She broke the kiss almost as fast as she had stolen it, exhaling deeply, a cloud of breath winding around them. He started to laugh, but was interrupted as she dove into another kiss.

"Dry like a Chantry sister, indeed!" Zevran thought sarcastically, caught off balance by the nuance of her motions, little nibbles on his lip and her tongue tracing over them just afterwards. This was not the kiss of a blushing virgin, no, this was the passion of a woman who chose her dalliances like a wolf stalking an oblivious deer.

With a quick turn in her step, she pressed all her weight against him, pinning him to the trunk of a pine that shook frosty crystals down on them both. She licked a line up his neck that made his skin bristle in the cold air. "Is this what you want?" She breathed into his ear.

She reeked of boiled bark and ginger and green earth, covered over with week-old hides and sweat-soaked armor and the dark odor of metal warmed by skin contact for days at a time. He indulged in the smell of her a moment, strangely reminded of his homeland: disorganized layers of life and industry and death meeting tradition, all striking you at once.

After a long inhale, he blinked back at her with mischief creasing his eyes, "I was hopeful, yes, but normally, it goes more like-" With a hand cupped around her side, he leaned in, and rolled them, until his weight was pressed over hers, his other hand leaned into a branch above them for stability as the pine boughs creaked a complaint. "This," He crooned, coaxing his fingers down into her waistband, running his fingertips over the parallel grooves that spiralled along her smallclothes. It was hardly an effort; her pants were almost falling to her hips in her haste to dress in darkness.

She sighed, quick, high and sweet like the call of a bird, before her hand drew up to his neck, stroking upwards to cup his ear, fingers coiling and then latching into his hair.

"Mmm," he purred as she wrapped her leg behind to pull him closer. He forgot his wandering hand a moment as she rolled her hips against his, sweet warmth meeting in the bitterly cold night. Her lips found his ear, and as she kissed just once, then brought her teeth down on the lobe with exquisite gentleness, he was glad for the arm still clutching the branch above them, because his knees weakened.

"You are," Zevran gasped, "Not what I expected."

She shushed him, and tugged at the belt of his armor. Her grip loosened, and thrust down between his legs. Immediately, her whole body stiffened as her nails clicked against the cup of his leg guards. Her gaze shot back to his, wide eyed like she'd awoke from a dream.

He bit his lip to keep from laughing. It would certainly spoil the mood and she wasn't the first maid to lose her focus at the prospect of dealing with his armor.

"Sh…." she stuttered, "Shit." He teeth chattered as she laughed in a nervous, squeaky octave.

The cold crept over his bare hands again as he stood upright, an involuntary grunt reminding him how he too wished he hadn't slept in his full armor that night. "Come now," Zevran offered his hand. When she accepted, he wrapped his arm around behind to pull her to him, hand rubbing warmth into her as they hurried along. "How about we go back to my tent. I'll warm you up there."


	8. A Strange Awakening

"How did I end up in bed with him?" Kyrn pondered. One arm reached over to move the tent flap aside and stare into the fading starlight of pre-dawn. The constellations still sang marvellously clear, despite the encroaching sunlight brightening the edges of the horizon to a brilliant indigo. Her other arm was pinned up next to Zevran, warm but prickling with numbness as she flexed her hand experimentally.

Some parts of their tryst she remembered clearly, like the way they had both giggled breathlessly as they tried to undo their armor without falling into the ties that held Zevran's tent up or waking everyone with their exuberance. She remembered the heat of their breath intermingling and the way he smelled beneath his armor, musky and strong like myrwood, leather and smoked sage. Some parts were lost in her insomnia, the details of how he actually had removed her clothes, and how they had come to the point where his breath was rasping against her neck, both of them grunting into each other's ears as they raced towards their climaxes far faster than their boasting anticipated.

And then she had cried out Tamlen's name, and the though it mortified her that she had lost herself enough to forget where she was, who was really pleasing her, it didn't seem to even phase Zevran. He had continued, muttering something she could only assume was Antivan as his hand clutched her shoulder and he buried a gasp of exertion in her collarbone.

It amazed and embarrassed her to admit that she didn't recall much past that. She collapsed into sleep more heavily than she had in a week, and though not even half a night had passed, she found herself awake and contemplating the sky and Zevran's sleeping face rather than returning to the forgetful Beyond as she ought to.

"I should go back," Kyrn whispered, tugging at her trapped arm as lightly as she could. Instead of releasing her, he rolled towards her, pressing his freezing nose into her chest and making what she could only guess was a smile by the feel of it. She stifled a cold shriek and shivered, which made him chuckle against her breasts. "It would be simpler to explain," she repeated, "If I crawled out of my _own_ tent in the morning…"

In response, he brushed his arm over her hip and pulled her closer, a new erection already pressing up against her thigh. "Since when do you care what other people think?" He whispered conspiratorially.

She frowned down at the top of his head, "You don't know me very well."

"On the contrary," Zevran purred, gripping her butt firmly, dragging his hand down to the crevice between her legs, tugging her leg closer and inching his fingertips until they dipped into the wetness still lingering from their earlier activity. "I know parts of you _very_ well now."

She protested, but only for a moment, until his grip flexed inwards, and his fingers were sliding back and forth along her slit while his breath dampened her chest. For a moment, she indulged in the feeling of his deft hands tracing through the fine hairs between her legs, pressing in on already swollen flesh and hovering over the peaks of her nerves. The moment he hesitated, she shoved him away and rolled on top of him, pinning his wrists to the ground and leering over him. "You think I'm going to let you do all the work?" She cooed.

"Why not?" Zevran grinned, "Most women enjoy my attentions." He started to say something more, but his words fell away as she began to measure the length of his manhood with her fingertips.

"And what do _you_ enjoy?" She whispered, glaring down at that stubborn face contorted in distraction, with that half of a tattoo that was infuriatingly reminiscent of a vallaslin flashing back at her as Zevran's eyes closed with a soft moan.

"Oh," He choked out, sighing as she traced her palm downwards, a pleased smile spreading over her face as she felt his longing growing in her grasp. "I enjoy many things."

In response, she simply continued to explore, brushing her fingers through the course hair between his legs, grinning with perverse satisfaction at the way he lifted his hips as she cupped his balls, fingers walking further still to press into the folds around his shaft. "I remember you saying I wasn't what you expected," Kyrn whispered. "What did you mean?"

"This!" Zevran chuckled hoarsely back at her, "I didn't expect you to be so experienced!"

Kyrn slowed her exploration, releasing the hand she was still pressing down to lean on her elbow as she continued to watch the expressions he made as she stroked his shaft again, her thumb pressing a firm line up the length that prompted an unmistakable twitch.

"I've only ever been with one man," she wanted to tell him, but swallowed the words. "We weren't even supposed to be doing these things," She thought. Zevran looked Dalish, but he was a city elf. What would he understand of being bound to another? Of years spent growing deeper and deeper in love with a childhood friend? It didn't seem right to tarnish the moment with her own sorrow when Zevran was obviously enjoying himself. Especially when she wanted so desperately to enjoy the time they had.

A rough thumb circled over her knuckles, feeling more of hard callous than skin as Zevran took her hand in his, pulling her away from her idle stroking. "You can stop," He offered kindly, a contented smile cracking the edge of his lips as he touched her chin, bringing her eyes away from the side of the tent where she'd been staring, and back to him.

"Is that so?" Kyrn pondered aloud, finding it hard to look away from those eyes the color of citrine, sweet and tempting as honey. "It's just, I can hardly remember last night-"

"Surely you're joking," Zevran spat incredulously.

"I thought maybe we could try again, now that I'm clear headed," She lowered her lips over his fingertip, her teeth tapping the nail, before swirling her tongue over. The leg she had snaked over his slid further, lowering her hips over his until her wet folds slid over the top of his shaft, pinning him in place without letting him enter. She grinned back slyly, "Unless you still want me to stop."

He responded swiftly, grabbing the back of her neck in one hand and scooping up under her hip with the other. His grip pulled her head forward by the hair, until her face was next to his, their chests pressed together, lips a hair's breath from her ear as he whispered lustily, "You tease."

A whimper from them both, a slight twist of her hips and a quick grip of his fingers, and his length was inside her again, white hot bursts of pleasure pounding against sore muscles as they rutted together.

Her toes crinkled into the blankets for purchase as she angled her hips, trying to draw out every bit of sweet release as they ground together, until finally she broke away, sat up feeling the sweat crystalize on her skin as cold air struck her chest, hardening her nipples in a harsh instant.

Their eyes met again, hers dark and glaring as she panted, grunting like she was fighting for her life, as his mouth twitched in a forced smile, like the thrill of being inside her was tearing him in two. Seeing that smile lost in an ecstatic grimace made her shiver. Her hand slid over her mound, itching to speed her climax along. Just as she was starting to find a rhythm he reached up to her face once more, sliding two fingers across her lips, pressing firmly until she sucked them, her teeth biting down carefully as a shudder passed through her.

"te gusta?" he purred, a hitch peaking in his moans as she sucked down hard on his fingers. He pulled them out, marveling at the pop they made as she smacked her lips. He thrust down between her legs, shoving her own hand aside and finding the nub of her womanhood with a quickness that rivalled her own.

She yelped, cries stifled as she collapsed against him, panting with each thrust of his hips grinding his shaft into her, forcing his fingers over her clit harder and harder. His lips traced over her ear, his fast breaths all she could hear as the world closed in tight around them as their legs locked together.

"No more joking?" Zevran laughed breathlessly, a whimper her only response as he quickened his pace and dug his hands into her butt and spread her open around his deft fingertips, trying to push deeper with each thrust.

She could feel his eyes on her, though hers were shut tight, lost in the smell of him, the sweat that made the grind more intense and stuck their chests together, and the softness of his hair that she had so tightly entwined in her fingers like an anchor.

"Chorro," Zevran growled quietly, "Chorro y mi."

When she didn't understand, he repeated huskily, "Come for me," biting down on the point of her ear.

His breath quavered, and she snarled into his neck as she held back against the peak of sensation, sinking her teeth into his hair to muffle the squeal as he pressed into her hard, cupping over her mound and crushing her nerves together, her center tightening over him as he twitched and throbbed, a long sigh finally escaping his lips as they both dissolved into their climax.

After languishing a little while, she finally peeled herself away, amazed at how dry mountain air and so much pleasant sweat could combine to form the world's most potent glue.

Zevran chuckled softly, watching her with an expectant smile.

"What?" Kyrn quipped.

"Memorable enough this time?"

Kyrn tossed his blanket over his face, and debated smothering him on the spot.

Their breath clouded the tent as they lay recovering, until a solitary howl broke the quiet, her wolf announcing the morning at the first light breaking through the trees.

"Alistair will be up soon," Kyrn grumbled, knowing how the man loathed her companion animal more than any other member of their band. "I really should get back to my OWN tent."

Zevran leered back at her silently, lounging back with his hands behind his head.

"What now?" Kyrn sighed.

"It is just," Zevran pondered, "I am thinking that now I would like a reminder, too. Pity there is not time for a third tumble."

A day or a week or a lifetime ago she might have scoffed, but right then, Kyrn couldn't help but smile. She leaned over to plant a quick kiss on his lips, before scrambling to at least get her shift and breeches on before the chilly dash back to her shelter.

She left him with a ponderous furrow still in his brow, and the silently judgemental gaze of her wilder wolf watching her from the shadows beyond the camp.

**A/N - I'm making up a lot of the "Antivan" as I go from bastardized spanish. Try not to let it bother you :) Most of the time the meaning is explained in the dialogue.


	9. Knocking Boots

Zevran wiped the shopkeep's blood from his blade, contemplating the situation as the others continued investigating the storeroom. He had been forced to kill the man after Kyrn's stealth had been compromised. Leliana had begun teaching her the finer arts of secrecy and shadow-dancing, but the rapoire between the two had been perpetually strained at best. While the Dalish girl was willing to learn new skills when they seemed suitable, the Orlesian bard had been constantly repulsed by Kyrn's naturalistic practices and talk of animal bonds and useful wilderness skills.

The last straw had come when Leliana had smacked a slimey root from Kyrn's hand when the elf had been attempting to instruct the woman of some important herbal remedy or another. Zevran hadn't the slightest idea what knowledge she had been trying to impart at the time, but Kyrn had stalked away angrily and hadn't spoken to her for an entire day. That was more than two weeks ago, and in the meantime she had spent more and more time with Zevran, trying to help him understand some brief sliver of the forest's secrets, and in turn, he had tried to impart some basic understanding as well. He showed her how to move, how to read a mortal enemy, and how to hide in plain sight. All skills she hadn't required when she learned to strike down prey with an arrow from across a ravine.

But the lessons had gone disastrously. While she was better than she had been at the start, today was a prime example of how far the distance was between their dear ranger and even an amateur assassin. They had discussed sending someone through the back window to see what the man seemed so eager to hide. Zevran had volunteered, but Alistair had immediately refused. The templar offered up Leliana as a second option, but the woman wore almost as much chainmail as the Warden himself.

Wynn had answered, "No." before the question could even be completed.

That had left them all staring to Kyrn, who eyed them back with an expression like someone had just dropped a handful of bugs down the back of her tunic.

Despite her lighter, softer armor and petite, agile physique, what followed was like something out of a street theatre- the kind with soft puppets with little mallets and bright colors so small children could understand it. She'd broken the window on her way in, then tripped over a box as she backed away from the murdered knight she found. Zevran's blades were through the shopkeep before he could even finish his murderous ranting, but it was a poor display of strategy.

"I could make you a nice wolf fur cloak-" Alistair contemplated aloud.

Kyrn pointed to him menacingly from over the top of the box she had swung open, "You harm a hair on Da'fen'len's head and if he doesn't castrate you, I will!" Her accomplice wolf had been seen at the edges of the camp several times, to Leliana's terror and Alistair's perpetual agitation, but Kyrn had proven the animal's worth in battle after battle as it leapt upon a darkspawn or took down one of it's rapid peers in the forests.

Kyrn's threat brought Alistair to stiff attention, looking properly chastised before he glanced about at Leliana and Kyrn's ransacking of the shop. "Should we be going through a dead man's things like this? It seems-"

For once, it was Leliana who cut him off with prudence, "He was a murderer and a cultist, Alistair. Do we really owe him _courtesy_?"

"Plus, I am _freezing_ ," Kyrn added. "You may have been outfit by your kin with a good warm cloak and armor linings, but I was not!"

It did not help that Wynn was perhaps the worst staller and liar he had ever met. The woman's nervous platitudes as they tried to keep the merchant distracted might as well have screamed, "There's a thief in your warehouse, uncovering your secrets! I'm an accomplice, I'm turning myself in!"

"She was a circle mage, but she couldn't be THAT sheltered, yes?" Zevran thought as he finished polishing his blades, aware of Kyrn striding up to him with something in her hands, and an unusual smile on her face. Of course, that smile didn't seem quite as unusual in the past few days, since their first night together. While he could admit it was a refreshing romp for him, it seemed to have been something altogether different for her. Though she had not been instantly transfigured into a radiant beam of sunshine by the mere glory of his amorous skill, there were strange cracks in her usually stoney facade that he had never seen before. It was a bit unnerving, if he was completely honest with himself. Especially because he saw a strange reflection in her, like he too was cracking, and something was being revealed he did not want to set loose.

"Here," Kyrn chirped, handing him a pair of leather boots with a mischievous grin.

He looked down at the shoes appraisingly, unsure what the strange expression on her face meant. "Oh, goody, more dreadful Fereldan footwear," He muttered, trailing off as he turned them to and fro to look at the surprising craftsmanship. The threadwork was tight, and immaculately even. It looked like the stitcher had even stamped the holes before threading them, and sealed the important areas with boiled glue. "These are Antivan," He finally responded, blinking back at her incredulously.

They had spoken more in the day after their night together than they had in the previous month put together. Their lively chatter had caused no end of glowering from Alistair, and a strange sort of conspiratorial smirk from Leliana each time she'd glanced back at them, but the chance to talk about his homeland and his adventures with her had been as freeing as it had been painful.

Perhaps sensing his thoughts wandering, Kyrn glanced back at him with a tinge of worry. It was an altogether foreign look on her face. He had grown accustomed to animosity at every turn, sprinkled with repulsion, anxious laughter and plenty of righteous anger. But genuine merriment and concern? Those were the faces of a stranger.

"I saw the maker's mark… and you told me you missed having a good pair of shoes… are they not-?" Kyrn asked hesitantly.

"Why are you offering the good boots to the assassin, before you offer them to a fellow Warden?" Alistair snapped, stomping over from across the room.

At first she looked shocked by his accusation, but after one glance between them, she snatched the boots from his hands, and tossed them at Alistair's breastplate so fast he stumbled, scrambling to catch them before they struck the ground.

"Do they fit?" She chirped.

"What?" Alistair stammered.

"Zevran has small feet. Smaller than most humans, yes?" Kyrn enunciated by pointed down to Zevran's feet and then her own. "I was told a story of the EmberQueen, you see-"

Leliana burst into giggles from a corner of the room, though the joke remained lost on Zevran. He could hear a barely perceptible, "Oh dear," muttered under Wynn's breath from where she waited in the outside doorway.

Kyrn continued, "They said she could be queen if the found shoe fit. Tell me, Alistair, can you even FIT these fine, DELICATE boots?"

They all looked down at his feet, covered over in extra-large, chunky greaves. The armored shoes were massive, and made from thick red iron and steel plate, but they had all seen the larger-than-life feet underneath.

With a blushing grimace on his face, Alistair shoved the boots roughly back into his arms, turned and stomped outside cursing a storm under his breath.

Zevran joined Kyrn in victorious snickering while Leliana was doubled over in a fit of giggles. He tossed aside his current shoes that were almost more patches than leather and pulled on the fortuitous boots with a sigh of delight, all the while marveling at the soft pink of Kyrn's cheeks. The flush of color suited her, cast in such stark contrast to her plain brunette hair and earnest brown eyes, it warmed the tips of her complexion like the first small blossoms on a briar thought dead from the winter.

**A/N - "Da'fen'len is the best Elvehn I could patch together, to mean, "Grey Wolf child." Or "Little Grey Wolf", the name she has given the wolf she tamed.


	10. Toxic Choices

A/N: I uploaded chapters 8 & 9 around the same time. If you missed 'A Strange Awakening' be sure you have read all the chapters before you keep going. Thanks! -Anxsoc.

* * *

 **Chapter 10: _Toxic Choices_**

Kyrn examined the edge of her bow, scoffed at the shattered wood and tossed it aside. She heard the wood crack when she struck the leader as he tried to jump her from her blind side. Her shoulder ached from the join of her neck all the way to her waist because of it. Even though losing another wretched Fereldan bow to a blunt-force defense was better than losing her life, it was exhausting to swap weapons every few hours as their enemies hammered them from every corner of these damned caves.

Though she had pulled out her reinforced steel arrows, her shots had done little to defend them from the cultists' attacks when they were in a freezing chamber, and all their assailants were decked in full plate armor and flanked by drakelings. While trying to avoid hitting her own comrades, more than a few arrows had shattered uselessly on rock instead of their enemies.

She kicked the leader's corpse and glared into his lifeless eyes a moment before picking up his bow, quickly appraising it and tossing it onto her back. She ripped his armor apart, seeking any advantage his gear might give, looking for potions, poultices or wealth that might compensate for the gear they had demolished on this absurd endeavour to make it up the mountain.

As she thrashed about, the clink of glass rolling over rock caught her ear, and she watched the evil looking vial of 'andraste's blood' roll from his hand. With a sneer, she crushed it under her heel and grinned with delight at the feel of it spreading over the ground and already beginning to dry. The only thing worse than the humans' foolish 'Maker' and 'Andraste' was a FAKE savior, claiming to be a dragon reborn. "Really," She thought smugly, "the things these Shemlen believe." She winced and cringed as her muscles protested when she stood straight again.

"Are you alright?" Alistair called to her, from where he too was ransacking the corpses for anything of use. He looked closer to the Beyond than she did, covered in more blood than metal, his helm caved in on one side so the nose guard did not even align to his face anymore.

Kyrn couldn't find the energy to lie at that moment, sneering, "Aside from being chewed on, scratched, frostbitten, and tired as hell, yes, I am GREAT."

Alistair blistered at the unnecessary sarcasm, but his rebuttal was interrupted by a swift thump to the back of his pauldron, "What did you expect her to answer?" Zevran chuckled, amazingly unhurt by the continual combat, though almost as blood-soaked as Alistair himself. "She is not one for flowery prose like our dear bard, yes?"

Though Leliana shot them both a withering glare, she said nothing, merely recouping what arrows she could from the battlefield before cleaning her own blade as well.

"Ah, forgive me, my Lady," Zevran crooned, bowing to the Orlesian woman so deeply she couldn't help but smile in response to his guile, even when it dripped with cloying sentiment.

Kyrn joined them in stepping back into daylight, the rumored temple rising before as they limped through the last of the natural caverns, ominously shadowed by a narrow ravine. "Can you believe what I found on that cretin's body? Some kind of unholy-" She shivered, "Something. In a vial."

"Is it the dragon's 'blood of Andraste' that man was ranting about?" Leliana cut in, "Perhaps it is a poison. Let me see."

Kyrn pulled her foot up her waist, taking a moment to enjoy the pop of her back realigning as she showed her the stain on the bottom of her boot. "Abelas, All that is left is right here."

"You smashed it?" Leliana balked, watching her stride through the narrow valley where a High Dragon stood watch far above.

"Gladly," Kyrn chirped.

Leliana narrowed her eyes as she glanced between the dragon and the ranger, but said no more as they approached the long hidden temple. They all walked silently through the mountain's shadow, aware of each wingbeat snapping overhead, weapons drawn in case the high dragon decided not to tolerate their presence after all.

It took all their combined strength to slowly push the aged doors open, but the craftsmanship was precise enough that once they were pushed open, they stayed that way. Kyrn walked in without hesitation, used to eery quiet from the numerous ruins she had traversed while her Clan traveled through the forgotten wilds.

"Impressive," Zevran whistled, stepping ahead and looking around with an appraising eye, while Alistair, Leliana and Wynne hung back in various states of awe and reverence. Their sloth agitated her, though she couldn't place why. Though no love was lost between herself and Andraste, she could still respect the effort it took to make it here, and imagine the way it might feel to enter one of her own gods' holy spaces.

But she couldn't _feel_ it. It seemed like everything about the architecture was built to impress tranquility upon you, make you feel small and cradled in the stonework. So why did it give her goosebumps? It felt as if the stale air was abrading her skin as she beckoned the others to follow faster.

From high above, slanted beams of dust-filled light cascaded into the resounding grey atrium that seemed to be dimly lit from everywhere and nowhere at once, save for a stoic figure in wing-tipped armor made from the light itself.

After what seemed like an unending amount of explanation, the spectre spoke to her specifically, with the same ever-patient level tone of voice as it punched her verbally in the gut.

"Tell me Pilgrim, did you fail Tamlen?" The ghostly image of the guardian stood before her, speaking in echoes.

Kyrn wanted to respond, "No." But the words wouldn't form on her lips. Her throat ached, dry with self-consciousness as the evanescent man stared back at her.

"Yes," she croaked out, surprised as despair she'd put away for so many long weeks lanced through her stomach, fresh as the day he disappeared. "We should have gotten the Keeper. I should never have let him go into that ruin in the first place… Ma Dirth Vhenan… ma abelas… ma aneth lath ara… He was my husband in all but name. My life, my love...my completion," Kyrn ended in a stammering whisper, already feeling the hot tears crinkling her eyes, trickling down into the corners of her lips. "I should have searched longer. How could I leave him to that fate… tainted, and dying…"

Moved by her sorrow, Lellianna reached out a hand to Kyrn's shoulder to calm her, "You couldn't have known what would happen, don't be so hard on yourself." The Orlesian woman seemed truly concerned, but her eyes wandered with the uncertainty of an unfinished story.

"How could she possibly know that?" Kyrn thought bitterly. "She wasn't there. She's never even asked me anything about how I ended up on this path. Every conversation we've had has centered around her disgust at something, or some gilded trinket she had to leave back in the Orlesian court!"

For their part, Alistair and Wynn were also concerned, and though she knew they said something equally consoling, she couldn't hear them over the roar of her own heartbeat, crashing in her ears like she was drowning.

Their base flaws were laid out like cards by the solemn apparition. She watched as the Chantry sister scowled back at his abrupt denial of her vision, and the crushed expression on Alistair's face as it asked if he should have died instead. But it was Wynne who drew her from her own self pity as she answered the ghost in his own objective tone of voice.

"It seems you've already got your answer," Wynne replied plainly, "The way you word the question doesn't leave much room for retort. But yes, I do worry if I am affecting change. It doesn't matter, though, because the more pressing question should be 'Should I still try.' The answer is yes, the effort is always worth it."

Wynne's calm reply was heartening. She found it easy to respect the older woman, even to completely forget her race the way she always strove to defend others and act with kindness. Kyrn reaffirmed in her mind that she wouldn't take anything the strange visions said to heart. Magic was at work, that was certain, but all it could do was read their hearts, their minds, and spit back some absurd Andrastian bullshit.

"And what of those that follow you?"

"And the Antivan Elf?" The spirit queried, turning its gaze to Zevran.

He shot back a dry, tired sneer as he replied, "Oh, is it my turn now? Hurrah. I am _so_ excited." His tone and uneasy glare implied the opposite. Kyrn smiled as she watched him, trying her best to wipe the tears from her face with armored hands. His sarcasm in the face of the strange trial made her smile.

It continued, without amusement or anger, "Many have died at your hand. But is there any you regret more than a woman by the name of-"

"How do you know about that?" Zevran muttered, and his bored sneer melted to nervous attention as the spirit continued.

"I know much. It is allowed to me. The question stands, however. Do you regret-?"

"Yes!" Zevran interupted, "The answer is yes, if that is what you wish to know. I do. Now move on!"

She watched him, seeing the sharp sting of old pains pass behind his eyes before he crossed his arms, taking a sudden interest in the bas relief carvings around the doorway as he ground his teeth.

"Is that all?" Wynne calmly inquired.

"You may pass," It replied simply, "Go in the path of the Maker." it's voice dissolved as its form did, becoming like the dust dancing through the angled light once more.

* * *

*Ma Dirth Vhenan… ma abelas… ma aneth lath ara (Roughly, "My promised heart" (bethrothed, fiance), my sorrow, my beloved, "my safe traveling love" My soulmate.


	11. Trying Times

Kyrn moved through the bleak hallways in a haze until Tamlen stood before her, and her carefully constructed wall of stoicism shattered. All she could do was watch his perfectly copied face serenely gazing back at her, as if lifted from a happier time. His chestnut hair was still tousled unevenly as it always had been. The translucent figure even bore his overly-large nose and bushy eyebrows set around those kind eyes, more quietly contemplative than they ever were in life.

Part of her longed for it to be true, longed for it to really be him, consoling her from a thin window in the veil. But her heart ached with another understanding, that it was also completely false. But how could she turn away from so keen a duplicate, when he came wearing his radiant smile, sun-streaked hair and the sparkle of laughter in his eyes?

He whispered in a dozen dissonant voices like leaves blown over her path, "You think, 'This cannot be Tamlen. Tamlen is gone, he is merely footsteps in the dust.'"

She shook her head slowly, "I tried to find you, Tamlen. Him," she stammered, reminded again that this _thing_ was not _him_ , "Tried to find _him_ -"

"Some things lost can never be found. Some mistakes never unmade…" It replied solemnly, reaching out to her before she stepped back in fright.

The apparition babbled on with reverent sounding nonsense until Kyrn growled, "Enough!" The Guardian had already dangled cryptic phrases before her, but to hear the same vague antagonistic words from her lathellan's lips was more than she could bear.

"You are not him," She snarled, "you cannot fix me like a broken toy! I'm done with this nonsense-"

Alistair hissed a cautionary breath, and tugged at her shoulder with his gauntleted hand. "Calm, Mahariel."

"Those that survive must go on living," Tamlen's voice echoed, "You have suffered enough. It is time to leave that behind. I will see you again."

She punched though the spectre, no more than a cold mist to resist her flailing attack. "NO!" She screeched as Alistair and Lelliana yanked her back in restraint. "What does that even MEAN?!"

"Calm yourself, child," Wynne tried to soothe, a cool icy mist spreading from her hands, until Kyrn shocked them all with a high kick that sent Alistair and Leliana reeling back, and Wynne tumbling to the ground clutching her wrist while her staff clattered to the ground.

"You would bewitch me into silence?" Kyrn snarled, fighting Leliana's grip to try and scream at Wynne, "Is this what your shit religion thinks is funny?! Let's prod the knife-ear about her dead love!" She stomped her foot into Leliana's and relished the yelp of pain as she released her hold. Alistair seemed to finally take the hint, and lifted his hands as she lunged from his grip. Her fist met the wall instead of the apparition's face, and though some of the cracks she heard were actually the old mortar crumbling away, much of it was bone, and she immediately regretted her tantrum.

Sobbing, hiccuping back tears of agony as she clutched her hand, she slid against the time worn stone, studded leather scraping sporadically until she landed haphazardly on her rump, curled up as tight as she could manage, the cold of the floor already pulling the heat of her anger from her ill-clothed legs. Staring down at her tranquility, the apparition finally dispersed into the corridor's fog as if he were never there.

All the while, Zevran stayed his distance, watching her with increasing incredulity as her anger had raged before them. He had been cool and distant since the Guardian had teased out that strange mote of his past. For a man who seemed to regret his lost footwear more than his occupation, she didn't know what to make of his previous outburst, anymore than she knew what to do with her own sorrow. Why did a single woman bother him? And why did it bother _her_ so much?

"What is this?" She sobbed, throat tight, her voice a forced squeak as she rested her forehead against her knees. "Some Andrastian after-life bullshit? What good is it to see my lethallan in the _Beyond_? What sort of horrible creature would tell Alistair that he ought to be dead, or shame Leliana just for believing in something. Perhaps this is not the resting place of Andraste at all, but a malevolent spirit."

"Enough already, really-" Alistair grumbled, reaching towards her. She smacked his hand away without even thinking, hissing as she struck him with the already injured arm.

Leliana brushed herself off as she stood to proceed to the next cavernous space. "Let the child simper, then," She groused with uncharacteristic spite.

A warm zethyr wafted by her with the sound of resonant bells, and Wynne stood, wiggling her fingers to test her healed wrist with an exasperated frown on her face, "Really, now," She scolded. "Was that necessary?"

Kyrn shook her head silently, shying away from Wynne's advances as the mage tried to get a better look at her injured hand.

"Just let her see, lupita," Zevran quietly persuaded, "She'll just fix your hand."

Her eyes darted between Zevran's unusually kind eyes and Wynne's concerned stare. Finally, after a long moment, she offered up her hand, already feeling the swelling around her knuckles preventing her from closing her fingers. With the briefest of chants and a cold, numbing rush of air, her hand was restored, even if the furtive looks from all those around her told her there was no quick chant to heal the damage done by her thoughtless outburst.

"Thank you," Kyrn muttered to Wynne. She turned to thank Zevran as well, but then realized she only spoke to empty air. Zevran had already turned around to leave the way they had entered.

"Good riddance," Alistair snapped. "Perhaps he'll stay gone."

"Please don't say that," Kyrn whimpered, as exhaustion finished draining the spite from her voice.

Gradually, she picked herself up and they passed through the next two chambers in relative silence. It was lucky that they had Wynne and Leliana with them, because between Alistair and herself, they would not have gotten a single riddle correct.

Even Wynne's intellect and Leliana's religious fervor did not solve every strange question. They were forced to fight and dispel a dark apparition that attacked as Wynne gave them a less than satisfactory response.

She moved like an animated doll through the puzzles and stepping stones that followed, lost in her own head, reliving memories of summer afternoons watching Tamlen's face, stolen away again and again by the rippling surface of the Eluvian. At each turn her thoughts meandered, lead only by the swift instructions from the elder mage to step forward, or back, or hold her position as they proceed through the strange pilgrimage that an ancient magister must have thought would be clever.

"I think we have to strip," Leliana scrunched her face as she read over the text carved into a pedestal before a hedge of fire wreathing a sunlit statue of the Bride of the Maker herself.

Kyrn returned to her body in pins and needles, suddenly aware of the heat of fires and flesh around her: The judgemental mage, the swooning templar and the starry-eyed bard, all looking to her for a final say.

"What?" Kyrn snapped.

"Throw off the trappings of worldly life and cloak yourself in the goodness of spirit. King and slave, lord and beggar, be born anew in the Maker's sight," Leliana read again, raising an eyebrow. "I can only imagine one meaning-"

"Then go first, by all means!" Kyrn snapped back more bitterly than she intended. Leliana stared back her, mouth agape, but she couldn't tell if it was shock at her tone, or the implication. Before she understood what she had done, she and Leliana were blushing more and more red as they stared each other down.

"Not that I wouldn't enjoy the view, but, I, ah," Alistair tried to say, but dissolved into a muttering mess as Kyrn and Leliana both rounded on him with indignant glares.

"Enough of this childishness," Wynne muttered, loosening her robes with three deft flicks of her fingers. Before Alistair's stammers could form into a protest, her clothes were off, and all three of them tried to hide their horror at the glare of her pale skin against their unprepared eyes.

Wynne seemed immune to their heckling, though, looking instead to the fire ahead and their goal before them. "It is not the first time I have walked through fire," she whispered.

With two confident strides, she passed from the safety of the pedestal fully into the flames. There was no burst of charring flesh, no whiff of singed hair. There was only the back of her silhouette showing through the flames before she looked over her shoulder with a kind smile, "Coming, children?"

Kyrn was surprised at how fast she shimmied out of her armor and gambeson. She barely heard Alistair's complaints behind her, bleating for some help with his complicated plate mail as Leliana chortled at his efforts. She plunged into the fire with her eyes closed, a buried hidden facet of her heart longing for some kind of baptism, some answer in the inferno.

But there was none. She breached through the other side of the flames just to see them dissipate around them, welcomed only by the solitary sight of the ancient statue and Wynne's remarkably understanding smile gazing back at her.

She turned back to check on her comrades, seeing Leliana looking almost as lost and confused as her, barely a foot into the fire when the illusion had chosen to break around them, and Alistair hopping on one foot, barely half his armor removed, on the other side of the flames.

Their eyes met, and the glorious moment of freedom curdled in the sudden realization that Alistair's pants were a bit too tight, and hers were gone entirely. She slapped her arms across her chest, every hair on her body suddenly standing on end in protest.

She growled, "Turn. Around. Now." And glared until the he hopped in a tiny circle and crouched down in shame in his half-shed gear.

Despite whatever mixed animosity had grown between her and Leliana, she suddenly felt immensely grateful as the woman stood before her with her gear bundled up in her arms, eyes gently averted as she smiled playfully. "Do forgive him," Leliana squeaked, a laugh barely captured behind her teeth.

Normally Wynne would have chastised their silliness, but her gaze and breath were taken by the statue above them, pausing to mouth a prayer.

Though Kyrn lagged behind almost as long as Alistair did reclothing herself, she was the first to ascend the steps. All her companions stood reverently staring, hands clasped together in a moment of calm rapture, murmuring a chant probably too sacred for her ears.

Each footfall echoed tenfold against the crenellated walls, her steps grating as if the marble steps were never meant for iron-studded footwear to touch them. Furtively, her hand traced over the rim of the urn at the top of the pedestal. The small vase seemed so plain, so unassuming after the struggle it took to finally reach it. Every inch of her was suddenly tense with unease. How did one go about harvesting the ashes of a revered ancestor? This quest was wholly foreign to the Dalish; lesser crimes had started wars between the clans. The places where the revered dead were buried could be visited, but their bodies remained sealed with their treasures. To disturb their remains, even with a cleansing fire was the highest violation of their memory.

"You _did_ destroy that vial?" Leliana questioned, eyes blazing with suspicion. "Right?"

Glaring back at the Chantry rogue, Kyrn thrust her fist into the jar, emptied the contents back into a pouch and thumped it into Leliana's chest remorselessly. As the woman staggered back, she clutched her pauldron, and dragged her down to eye level to growl, "You really think I would poison and destroy what you believe in, like you Shems did to us?"

Her ears burned, an indignant fire rushing down her neck as she strode angrily down the stairs, Leliana's sputtering empty apologies falling on deaf ears as Kyrn broke into a sprint towards the exit archway, eyes blurred with tears as she dashed towards the pinpoint of light that marked the outside air at the end of the tunnel, running the gauntlet in reverse.

*,*,*

The air was too hot, too thick to breathe. Zevran swallowed greedily as he made his way back to the first gallery, the ceiling finally rising away from the narrow corridor into the atrium, holding the sudden claustrophobia back with it.

Though the stone carvings felt cool against his forehead as he leaned over for a moment's reprieve, it only made the fire in his gut more pronounced, and the clamour in his ears louder.

"Brasca," Zevran cursed under his breath, pounding the stone once for emphasis before he forced himself upright. "Why should my mind be dwelling on her like this?" He thought angrily, his senses twitching at everything around him like wind over a fresh burn.

He reminded himself that Rinna was almost a year dead now, and tried to take consolation in the thought that anyone could die at a moment's notice. Peasant or prince, farmer or soldier, they all lived under the razor's edge. Most were just more oblivious than he.

But it was not Rinna's face that concerned him; hers would haunt his dreams all his life, he knew that. It was Kyrn's voice echoing in his mind again, screaming not his name, but another.

 _Tamlen!_

Zevran rubbed his hand across his face, more confused than ever. He couldn't shake that look on her face, tear-streaked, ugly with doubt and sorrow over a dead man she did not even trust them enough to mention before now.

He knew, if he was a better man he would have consoled her, taken her into his arms, but the sound of the name on her lips still rattled him. He did not feel empathy at the sight of her tears, only unease at his own mixed emotions, his mind still lingering on a different woman, long dead. That he was even upset over Kyrn's insignificant betrayal confused him more. He had offered his body, and she had offered hers, she did not owe him an explanation.

The quick slap of footfalls crashed through his thoughts, quiet and soft enough that they could only be Kyrn's. She blasted past him before he was fully removed from his thoughts, only slowing as her feet struck the loose gravel frozen outside the temple, a string of Elven curses bouncing through the Ravine as she coughed to catch her breath.

"What happened in there?" Zevran called as he stepped into the blinding light of the mountaintop, the sky so painfully white that the color seemed to have been burned away by the sun.

She did not turn back to him, still cursing and recovering her breath, hunched over her knees. He continued to ask, "Did we get the silly chantry artifact, or do we have to find some other band of crazed humans to kill?"

Kyrn finally stood up, glancing back at him like one awaking from a daze. Her eyes were dark, puffy and bloodshot, thin glints of white sprinkled over her face like old chalk lines as her lips quavered to speak. "Ma lethallan… Tamlen… is gone."

He wondered for a moment how frightful he must have looked himself, because she crept towards him with the same hesitance she had reserved for the wolf, reaching her hands up slowly to cup his cheeks as she gazed back with incomprehensible longing in the distant darting of her eyes.

She leaned in, arching up to her tip-toes to plant a dry kiss on his lips, tasting of blood and salt and charcoal as mouths parched by thin air met for just a brief moment.

"He is gone. And you are here," she said quietly, as she rested her head against his chest, arms limply touching his shoulders. "I should not be so unkind to you."

At first, he did not even want to touch her. But slowly, as he listened to the puff of her breath on his armor, the anger unwound. Before he understood what had changed, he found himself mesmerized by the curling clouds her sighs left behind. Looking down at the flare of her eyelashes, almost completely obscured by her disheveled hair, he finally smirked. "I might need a reminder."

She blinked up at him, an uncertain smile tugging at her cheeks.

He reached up to scratch his chin, the other hand lightly walking up her hip as he drawled, "These last few days have been… trying, true, but I recall a great many _delicious_ moments. When, pray tell, were you unkind to _me_?"

His smile seemed to infect her, and she coughed out a chuckle. He did not know what image was playing behind her eyes as she looked away with a bite of her lip, but suddenly he could not stop remembering the freckles that dappled the base of her back, spiralling down into dark, secret places.

As they kissed again more languidly, the names "Tamlen" and "Rinna" did not seem as bothersome as they had before.

 _*Lupita:_ "She wolf." A cute nickname Zevran has given Kyrn, without her knowing yet what it means.


	12. Answering Anger

_Author's Note: There's more to this chapter I'll post into a second chapter. But I'm itching to give you guys another dose of Warden-Zevran time, so enjoy! ~_^_

* * *

Kyrn was proving to be a terror worse than the Darkspawn. She spoke little, and answered Alistair and Leliana's attempts at idle conversation with short bursts of cursing that he didn't have the faintest hope of comprehending. The only part he understood was the guttural growl of, "Shem!" at the end of her outburts before she demanded to scout ahead.

They would catch up to her again, spattered in a fresh starburst of dried blood, with no more explanation than to point to a handful of dead darkspawn, their throats ripped open, calmly declaring, "Scouts," as her wolf licked it's jowls meaningfully.

That day and the next proceeded at the same limping pace, with her bolting ahead only for them to catch up to her further down the trail, picking over another few Darkspawn corpses with a more viscous layer of blood overlaying the older dried layers, until her angry silence began to infect Alistair and Leliana as well. There was little Zevran could do besides recounting the juiciest, most scandalous tales from his repertoire to keep the dour mood from crushing all of them.

It wasn't until they made camp on the second day, finally back into the comparatively warmer climes of the northern Hinterlands that intimate opportunity arose again. Most nights she was single-minded in her routine: she caught some unfortunate animal unawares, set the fire and made something simple but filling for everyone, tacked her tent, before grooming over her current bow of choice and tucking into bed, ignoring as much conversation as possible, even from him.

But at the sight of her tonight, gobbed with days of dried viscera, Wynne snatched away the one large cookpot they carried between all of them, and grimaced at her in distaste, "I don't want you anywhere NEAR the food in that state!"

"Fine!" she'd spat, and stalked off into the woods. It wasn't hard to follow her with the amount of noise she made, and soon he came upon her in nothing more than her gambeson, charcoal grays stenciled by the scale plates and leather shielding away the blood. She leaned over the pile of half-rusted scales, chain and boiled leathers, completely unaware of his eyes tracing up her legs to the high slit in the padded fabric, contentedly taking in the sight of her as she attacked her armor with silt and pebbles dredged from the streambed.

"You know," Zevran commented slowly, leaning into a storm-gnarled tree on the high side of the stream bank, "I am a terrible opinion on the matter, but I believe, most people treat their friends more kindly than they treat strangers."

"Really?" Kyrn mumbled, picking up another handful of sand from the stream to scrub the genlock blood from her chainmail. Her eyes flicked over the armor's surface uneasily, like she'd lost track somewhere what red was rust or blood, and what black was oxide or day old darkspawn bits.

She shoved the coarse silt into the links with a passion, splashing water everywhere, until her hair clung to her face so haphazardly that he could hardly see her eyes. "Never punched your friend in the arm? Or ended up wrestling a pal to the ground because they'd prodded you just a little too long about a boy you were pining after?"

Zevran drew his eyes away from the tantalizing curve of her butt wiggling in the air as she worked, finding it hard to feign indifference to her half-naked state when the water made the linen underlinings cling to her in all the right ways. He fought back the urge to peel it from her like he was skinning a ripe fruit. "Well, true, but-"

"And a perfect stranger? A Mark, an Employer, some diplomatic envoy?" Kyrn grunted, turning the soaking pile over and dragging it to a faster flowing section of the stream to let the waters pull the loosened detritus away. "Would you punch them in the arm? Tackle them to the ground in public if they didn't agree about a woman you fancied?"

"No," Zevran snorted, "I can't say I have… though, their husbands, afterwards," Zevran grinned conspiratorially, "That usually ends in blows."

Kyrn rolled her eyes back to him, a slash of blackish-maroon still splattered across her face from the last fight. She had blindly snapped insults at anyone who voiced even a small concern for her well being.

Water splashed over her as she lifted the pile with a grunt, dousing it down with all her weight, and breathing heavily as she held them in place against the stream's current. Red and umber, rust and blood flowed away from her as the final layers of grime released their hold. Finally satisfied with the gear, she hauled it up onto a large rock angled over the shore and hung the chainmail pieces over the thickest branches she could find.

Asking if she was alright would be trite, and would probably get him just as harsh a response as she had thrown back at Wynne, Leliana and Alistair, so he stayed silent, observing. She had already told him about Leliana's insensitive remarks at the temple, and her own concern for the Witch's abrupt return to the Castle. It was no mystery why she carried on this way, only a mystery why she raged so loudly.

Kyrn sighed, scratching her nails through her scalp. "The other children in my clan were always calling me ' _Da'Len'in_ ," Kyrn grumbled, "BOY child. Even as I grew, I was a teen and almost a woman, and still they called me that, always scoffing at my roughhousing, everyone except Tamlen-" Kyrn's breath caught in her throat and she wiped the blood from her face, smearing it across her shirt before reaching down to cup her helm in hand. "People don't understand it? Fine. But I won't censor myself. They can hate me all they like." She scooped her helm full , and poured the contents over herself, biting back a loud gasp as one large splash brought her from dappled and wet to completely soaked head to toe.

"They do not hate you," Zevran soothed, offering up a hand to help her from the gravel-strewn shoreline up to the rocky steps above the streambank. He tugged hard, and she stumbled into him, her chest slapping against his with a wet burst.

"Ah, ha-" Zevran chided, "You cannot go back to camp looking like that."

"Well," Kyrn smirked as she pressed against him more tightly, her eyes darting downwards a moment to show that she felt the rise he hadn't been able to fight off. "I'm not hungry yet."

He searched for a witty reply, but her tongue was already fighting his, her mouth pressed to his as her fingers sought for grip in his hair. He broke away as the first plink of armor caught his ears, and chuckled as she popped lacings and wriggled agile fingertips under his breastplate.

Zevran chuckled breathlessly, "Not hungry for stew, at least."

She answer with a sly smile and a deft tug to his side, loosening the midsection of his armor in one move. Wrapping his arms behind her, he pulled her in closer, but her hands continued to pry and breach his clothing as he smiled, pressing his nose up to hers as he drawled, "You're eager, but you just washed up!" He playfully groped downwards, cupping her butt in one hand as his own fingertips explored, giddy to find the linen so malleable under his touch.

"Ah," He continued to tip-toe his fingers towards her warm folds as she worked at his armor tirelessly, "But you've missed this spot here." He hissed out a breath as she thrust her hand into his breeches, his grip clenched up the cloth over her backside, feeling the thick straps of her Dalish smallcothes tugging with them. "Still dirty," he hissed.

"Shh," Kyrn purred, slipping from his grasp with a smooth wiggle, dropping to her knees, and her real target. He clenched her rough gambeson up to her shoulders as she took him into her mouth. Knees trembling, one hand sought for purchase at the back of her neck, anchoring in the tails of her cornrows as the other plowed lines up her shoulderblade, eliciting a welcome cry of surprise that reverberated through his loins as she began to ply her tongue around his shaft.

"F-filthy," he gasped, "increíble.."

He was lost for a long time, eyes almost closed as he fought to stay upright as she licked, sucked, and angled her fingers around his manhood. For a moment he wondered what Alistair's face might look like, catching them in such a compromising moment. It brought a strange jerk to his cock, and not because the human templar wasn't an appealing sight of his own, but thinking of the jealousy it might entice was such a sweet pleasure to roll around in his mind.

Kyrn pressed down hard, pulling him deep into her throat with a gagging wet slurp that he thought might bring him to fruition right then and there, if he didn't collapse on top of her first. "Brasca! Wait!"

She yielded a moment, but only to shove him backwards, launching towards him a moment later to pin him to a nearby boulder, leering down at him as she gripped him again, cruelly splaying her hand around his shaft to press twin circles over his balls.

He groaned, and shook the hair from his eyes to glare back at her, "Fiend." Zevran clenched tighter onto the waist of her small clothes, tugging her close so he could part her legs with his knee. Bracing one hand on the rock behind him, he tried to roll her to one side, but she planted her feet and gripped his cock harder, turning her hand to the underside to draw a deep line from his ass forward.

A pleased groan escaped his lips, but he evaded her kiss and tried again to turn her, break free of the crushing press she had him trapped in. As she leaned into him and breathed a warm sigh over his ear, he gave in, relaxed against the boulder and thrust his hand up into her sex instead.

Her legs immediately clenched against his, a small uncertain cry his prize for slipping under her guard. As she continued to try and wring a climax from him, he began to rock his hand hard against her mound, working the pads of his leather glove against her crotch, flicking a finger into the deep moisture between her folds anytime she tried to break free to crouch and take him into her mouth again. Soon they were both bound close together, one of his arms entwining her waist, arm clenched tight up her spine to hold her by the shoulder, the other barely able to move where it was held between them, teasing her until she dripped over his gloved hand as he traced his teeth over the side of her neck. He whispered the most obscene things to her in Antivan, enjoying the way she trembled at his voice, though she hadn't the faintest clue of the ways he was asking to throw her to the ground, ravish her until she was spent and then lick her until she begged for him to kill her with such ecstacy.

"Inside you," he groaned, "I want to be inside you."

She finally let go of his hair, and locked eyes hungrily as she reached upwards, and simply raised one leg up to bend behind him. WIth a hand braced on a branch above them, she rolled to her tiptoes, and guided him in with her hand until he was encircled in her slick heat.

He bit his finger, yanking to remove the heavy, slick-soaked glove. Trying to get the upper hand was moot. It was all he could do to crush her mouth in his in a needy kiss and grab her ass to help her along, bracing himself to reach down to take her clit in his bare hand. As he pressed circles over her and rocked his hips, he strained to fend off the inevitable as she cried out in earnest.

Despite her disarray, there was so little skin contact between them. Barely any of his armor was removed, but where his stomach slid against his, and their bodies ground into one another, he felt like a furnace being blasted by arctic winds. She was cold, and clutching him so desperately, like she longed to pull all the warmth from his body along with his seed.

He gave her both soon enough, a shiver running through him as he came even as she was still crying into his neck, speeding breathes announcing her climax soon after his. He swirled his fingers until she clenched around him, cry becoming a shrill note in his ear as she stopped rutting against him to rock her hips slowly once, twice, and then pausing.

She lay over him limply as he extricated his hand, sarcastically chuckling against her cheek, "You didn't have to do _all_ the work."


	13. Answering Anger (Part 2)

It was a pity that Kyrn refused to go back to the camp with him, even to retrieve her fair share of that evening's fortified porridge. He hadn't thought about the disarray of his armor before agreeing to retrieve her dinner. The look on each of their faces in turn as he scraped the last two bowls from the cauldron was worth all the trouble of re-oiling his leathers where Kyrn's wet legs had pressed against him. Alistair seemed like he might vommit from fury and embarrassment at once.

"Why do you only have one glove? Where is your other glove?" Wynn scoffed. Her scowl of disapproval could rust metal at a thousand yards. But sweet, innocent seeming Lelianna's eyes spoke volumes. She looked as if she wanted to cut the remaining few ties and peel the rest of his armor off with just her tongue.

Alistair looked away, a hand in front of his eyes as he waved the other hand in dismissal, "If you can't be bothered to wear your armor properly, at least put a shirt on, you fiend!"

"It would be a pity to hide this glory from the world, your Highness!" Zevran crooned, bowing low without spilling the bowls. The Fereldan man's protests sang in his ears as he strode back.

In what little time he had taken to fetch dinner, Kyrn had already strung up the oil-cloth and her clothes, and made herself comfortable in a loose pile of her blankets and his piled together, languidly scratching her wolf behind one ear. His eyes were narrowed to relaxed bars of gold amidst the dappled brown and grey fur. It was the first time he'd noticed how similar their eye colors were, and the longer he watched her attention to her guardian, the stronger the pang of hunger curled in his gut.

At the first step to crunch underfoot, De'Fen'len's ears shot straight up, and his posture snapped to a rigid angle, gaze pointed straight back at Zevran. Before he could ask, Kyrn smirked. "Rahn," she chirped, and the wolf dashed into the dark of the forest with an effortless, silence grace.

Kyrn devoured her porridge, and then watched as he finished his with an unwavering gaze. "Well, you were certainly-"

"Hungry?" Kyrn interrupted, plucking the bowl from his hands and then going right for the last few ties of his doublet. He fought to breathe as she pressed her lips to his, her tongue fighting his even as she ran her hands over each and every closure of his armor. He tried to counter, begin to weaken her defenses but there were none left. She hadn't bothered to put any clothes back on. Beneath the blankets she'd pulled around herself, she was naked, completely open to his touch.

But it was hard to savor the sight of her as she pressed on, holding his lip between her teeth as she pushed the doublet over his shoulders, pauldrons falling noisily to the ground as he arched his back to accommodate. He reached around her to scrape his fingernails over her hip, and she was at the waist of his pants, eagerly tugging against the eyelets to his crotch.

"Easy now," he laughed against her collarbone, "We've all night-"

She kicked one leg out over his, and gripped his arms hard. He pulled back instinctively, and she rode the momentum up from the ground until she was riding him, straddled with his hands pinned to the ground next to her knees.

"Slower, then?" She whispered, leaning over until a stray little braid from her temple traced over his cheek. She smiled, her teeth playing over her lower lip eagerly. Pressing his wrists harder into the ground, she readjusted her hips to grind over his crotch. It seemed like the only part of her that was warm, her wetness inviting even though the thin leather gusset of his pants.

"Like this?" She continued to torment him, rocking her hips forward to grind slowly against him. The heat of her breath clouded around him, leaving a faint trickle of chill on his skin as he sighed in exasperation.

"And Alistair says _I_ am the fiend."

"Hmm?" Kyrn murmured, seemingly content to toy with him this way as long as she liked.

"Ah, Lupita Diabla…" Zevran hissed, wriggling his fingers for purchase against her legs as she continued to hold him down. "You know you cannot hope to hold back a master assassin such as I-"

"Is that so?" She joked, leaning down to kiss his neck. He bucked his hips up as she leaned. She yelped as she toppled over, and he rolled into the thrust and pinned her hands to the blankets now as he laid his whole body weight over her, the smell of her hair, still damp and muddled with the citron filling his nostrils.

He released one hand for a moment, just long enough to free his cock from his pants before pinning her again, his member squeezed down into her folds so invitingly as he ran his tongue along her ear. "Patience be damned," was all he said before he crushed his hips over her ass, his head dipping into the throbbing quim, clenching against him as he mounted her.

He growled into her shoulder that she was a tease, that she made him do this. She only cried back in Elvehan, though it seemed like just a few sweet words, repeated in sordid tone. The same few words he often heard from her. Words he imagined meant "Yes" or "more" or "faster". The same sort of words many lovers had called out before, but never with quite as much mystery to their meaning.

He reveled in the mystery as well, keen to tell her in Antivan what she would never take seriously aloud in the common tongue. How he would kill to take his pleasure from her, how she made him like an animal with her cruel teasing.

Grabbing her wrists, he moved her arms up towards her shoulders, still grinding against her backside, listening to her breath speed with his, until she finally moaned the one word of common she ever needed once they had begun to toss between the sheets.

"Close."

Nodding agreement, he rolled to the side, and dragged her with him, reaching around to pull her into his thrusts, and press her mouth to his to muffle her cries as they both rocked into their orgasms.

Both spent again, he barely recalled removing his bracers, his soiled pants, his boots, and wearily bundling the blankets around them both. He awoke from his tired stupor to hear her hand spiraling past the oilcloth, a soft crush of sand and dry earth back and forth. "It's a wonder we aren't all blighted," she pondered aloud, rubbing a clump of earth between her fingers.

He turned back to her, and propped himself up to stare at her breasts, debating if he wanted to ignite yet another round of passion by planting a kiss on the most upright nipple, "oh?"

"How many drops of darkspawn blood do you think it takes?" She continued. "They've been fought on every inch of the Korcarri wilds. They stomp through, dripping their vile blood everywhere. The wild life can be driven rabid by it, plants wither, whole forests grow gnarled or die… humans and elves alike become those.. things."

Zevran only nodded. Antiva had not yet suffered directly from any of the Blights. Perhaps that was why man-made bloodshed was so rampant there. "It is strange, no? Even the slightest exposure will make you a monster."

Kyrn scrawled a short row of script on the ground, before wiping it smooth again. "One time, a plague went through my clan. I could hear the children sobbing in the Aravels, coughing and mewling until they breathed their last. Sometimes one sibling, sleeping sick next to another would be spared, sometimes a whole family taken, and the next family over never even grew ill."

"Were you sick?"

She shook her head, slowly clenching and unclenching her hand against the dirt. "My father was already dead by then. It was a little after the boar gored him. I was still angry at Tamlen. My father died trying to save him and a few other city-born children from the rabid beast. I hid in the forest for a week, but Tamlen was such a blind nug back then, he kept following me around! I taught him to fend for himself out of irritation, so he'd stop looking at me with those pathetic whimpering stares. I quickly realized we were more alike than I wanted to admit… I found myself feeling as my father had… and taking care of him."

He slid his arm over her stomach, tightening his grip across her waist. With a sly chuckle, he leaned in to nibble the tip of her ear. "That sounds so innocent like that. How did it turn to…?"

Kyrn sighed, tilting her head to open her neck to him. "Time, and teenage boredom. Neither one of us really fit in around the campfire. No one wanted us interrupting their 'cultural stories' with questions and no one bothered to find us if we…" She trailed off as he nipped his way down the cartilage, and savored the way she gasped as he held his grip as she tried to tug her head away. She practically purred as the words came back to her, "That's the spot… we would go off hunting or scouting for days… even a week at a time."

Zevran slipped his arm lower, spreading his hand out to coil lines around her hip. "A week, you say?"

"We always-hmm," She moaned through closed lips as he curled his grip into her thigh, "Brought back game…. And - ah! Food-!"

He reached in, beginning to stroke her, delighting at the way she lost her words as he spiralled over her already swollen clit. He watched her eyes fluttered as brought her to another completion, no words between them as he watched, and then kissed her and whispered a demand into her ears to come for him. By the time he finished her his cock ached but it felt worth it to see the flustered exhaustion on her face, and feel the sweat of her breasts pressed against his chest.

Zevran softly traced over the spots on her back as she pointed up to the constellations they could see now, past the angled drape of the tent over their heads. She pointed to clumps he knew by their places in star charts. Simple annotations like "Northern Uno, South-auarterly Ocho," became drawn together for the world tree, the twin daggers, even the one her people called Andruill.

She scoffed at a silly name she had heard the Fereldans call the same constellation, and he paused his meditative stroke across her back. "Have you still not apologized to them?" He asked.

Her back stiffened against his hand, and Kyrn glared back over her shoulder at him. "Me?"

"Yes, you," he chided. "I am not blind to those skulking glances between you and Lellianna. Alistair keeps giving me this sickening mix of kicked Mabari and thieving Chantry-boy when he thinks I do not see him."

She sighed, "Must I? They were the ones who accused ME." She pulled the blankets up to her chest and starred into the night.

He held her with a deft press to her stomach, and drew nearer. "For someone who says they are trying to unite all of Thedas, you are terrible at uniting your own friends."

She twisted into his grip, curling against him as she pushed her arms between them. "Friends? They're not my friends. They're _shem-_ "

"Really?" He snapped. "You fight next to them, bleed on them, tend their wounds and fix their problems, but you won't call them your _friends_?"

She shut her mouth, and opened it again with a faint pop as she searched for words, "I… you… that's unfair… I just-"

He waited, a victorious smile expanding across his face, until she wriggled against his hold on her and looked away. "You're right…."

"You should have said that sooner," He crooned, planting a sucking kiss on her ear. "I always win."

His sarcasm won him an elbow the the stomach that gratefully missed it's real target.

"Maybe," he continued, "you should be a little kinder to your FRIENDS... because it is the right thing to do."

"Fine," Kyrn shot him back a sharp stare, and then broke into a toothy grin before she ambushed him with a tickle to the side that brought his arms jerking in involuntarily, long enough for her to shove her weight against his to gain the upper-hand, and upper seat again.

He snapped his hand up to her upper arm, ready to throw her over his side again, but her lips were already on his, her other hand already thrust down to press into the tender folds around his manhood. All thought of revenge tickling was gone, replaced with a sweeter, much more pleasurable train of thought. "I can apologize to them in the morning." She moaned as she caught her breath, "How about I make OUR friendship a little closer, then?"

He smirked back at her lustily, despite the icy feeling that slithered beneath his ribs as the word "friend" echoed in his ears. Suddenly the word tasted more bitter than "Tamlen".


	14. Apologies

"Are you not going bask in your rightfully earned praise?" Morrigan called sarcastically, stepping out from the shadows of the outer rampart to grin at her impishly.

Kyrn shook her head slowly as the headache that remained of her second encounter with Alistair's adoptive family pounded again. "Alistair and Leliana carry the ashes, not me. They can simper over the Shem' nobles. Alistair needs to grow a backbone. It's _his_ damn family."

Morrigan tipped her head to glance at her bird-like a moment, before tsking and stepping up to lean over the ramparts beside her, overlooking the brown sullen view of the town of Redcliffe, dwarfed by the imposing castle of red sandstone. "I only meant that you-"

"Abelas," Kyrn caught the word mid-way, remembering too late how it vexed all of them when she spoke in her native tongue, "I'm sorry, truly."

"Sorry?" Morrigan baffled, "For what, pray tell?"

"For snapping at you, those weeks ago. It was unkind of me. I should not have-"

Morrigan held up a hand, waving it as if dismissing a spell, "Tis nothing. I detested the errand. You were right to send me back. Besides, it gave me more time to study Mother's grimoire. The past fortnight has been… fascinating." She looked away, her gaze distant a moment, perhaps going over an occult phrase in her mind, far from Kyrn's sight.

She hadn't the heart nor the courage to tell Morrigan that she hadn't killed her mother at all. To slay the Asha'bellanar was sacrilege, and suicidal to boot. She had gone alone to the Marsh witch's lair, knowing that Alistair and the others would never approve of the complexity of the situation. As far as Alistair and the rest knew, she had simply spent time sulking in the woods alone, as she was want to do anytime they had to deal with human politics.

"Tell me now," Morrigan pondered, fixing her with a knowing gaze as if she could read Kyrn's guilt as clearly as the mark of Andruil on her face. " _You_ have never questioned my methods, only my attitude. You even defended those mages at the tower, pitiful cowering things that they were. You even let that maleficar in the tower go, despite Wynn's judgemental frowns."

She smirked at the thought of all the little frumps that Wynn had thrown her in the past few weeks, always stuck in the role of nanny for their unruly group. "Magic simply _is_. Denying magic is like denying," Kyrn traced a spiral in the air, searching for a better metaphor, but finally coughed out, "-dirt."

"Dirt?" Morrigan squinted, obviously taking personal offense from the comparison.

Sputtering, she continued, "You need it, it's messy. People can do terrible things with it, or wonderful things can grow from it, and it seems to be everywhere. and like magic, I may think I understand it, but I really don't. I never will. No one can."

Morrigan nodded, nudging a little closer to peer down in the same direction she did, fixing her gaze on the waterfront, where a handful of longshoremen were trying to manage a large shipment of raw ore Bann Teagan had seized for armaments. "Tis a surprisingly adept comparison. And like dirt, trying to wipe out every spec of it will cause you no end of headache, and will never destroy the _real_ source."

Smiling, Kyrn turned back to the castle, and gave a long sigh. "That man, Jowan-"

"is an imbecile," Morrigan scoffed dismisively.

"He spoke with me last night," Kyrn continued. "He was pleading for an appeal to his sentence. He told me they're going to execute him in the morning. When I thought about his situation, I realized that he hadn't actually killed anyone until the Chantry decided to hunt him down."

"That is often the way of things," Morrigan whispered.

"But they hunted him just because he _could_ do blood magic. Just for the possibility that he _might_ harm someone."

"Are you changing your mind now?" Morrigan asked.

She paused, searching the sky for some kind of answer, but couldn't find one amidst the gray flat clouds that obscured the sun from horizon to horizon. "It does not matter. I don't decide his fate. But… I do wonder about… circumstance," Kyrn whispered, glancing over her shoulder to Morrigan. "Our keeper in training, Merrill, uses blood magic."

Morrigan raised an eyebrow appraisingly, "Is that so?"

Kyrn nodded, "Keeper Marethari told me she watched over me for two days while I slept like death, while the blight ate at me. Her blood magic probably saved me life."

"At whose cost?" Morrigan asked flatly.

"No one's. Or perhaps... Merrill's?" Kyrn responded uncertainly. "She's the sweetest thing. Small, frail looking, quiet spoken. The kind of girl who might weep if she trod on an unsuspecting flower. She only worked magic with her _own_ blood."

Morrigan looked back at her with disbelief, "As intriguing as she sounds, why are you telling me all this?"

She shrugged, rubbing her arms against the cold she suddenly felt. "She was never well liked, even amongst my clan. We were never… friends… I prefer the wilds to my own people, to be completely honest. But aside from Tamlen, she was the only one I felt an urge to… protect…"

Morrigan watched her quietly as she continued, "Until recently. I guess what I mean is… I don't really know how… to have... friends…"

The witch looked back at her with a small smirk, and then looked back to the harbor with a frown. "Nor I. You must know this camaraderie is short-lived? I will die, or you will die, or we will finally vanquish this Archdemon, and the world will not let all of us stay together. Tis' never that simple."

Kyrn breathed out heavily, "I know."

Morrigan pressed a fingertip to her own lips, and traced along with her fingernail, eyes fluttering like she was remembering something pleasant, "It's difficult enough to hold onto _one_ person who is dear to you."

"I love you too, you big softy," Kyrn sneered, and was rewarded with punch to her arm, made worse by the woman's incredibly boney knuckles. As she winced in pain and snapped a few quick curses beneath her breath, Morrigan glared a smile back at her.

"You should learn a lesson from your blood mage friend, though," Morrigan drolled.

"What's that?"

"You cannot live your whole life giving yourself over to people's needs. You have to learn to TAKE what you need."

"A-hmm," Kyrn said absently.

"Maybe from that lovely assassin of yours?"

"Mine?" Kyrn coughed, her neck igniting with an embarrassed flush.

"Do you realize you've been smiling for HOURS now?"

Kyrn looked away, desperate to hide the flush behind her hand, but the heat from her cheeks burned like embers.

"He has his charms," Morrigan continued in the same explanatory drawl she used to despite potion ingredients. "I'll give him that. Certainly he must be quite something in bed for you to risk so much in order to be close to him."

Her heart plunged into her stomach at the last three words, "Close to him."

"Tis a bit sickening to watch you two, but I imagine it at least takes your mind from out… situation."

The long pause after Morrigan's words seemed to suggest she expected some kind of response, but Kyrn's mind was in too deep a state of turmoil to reply.

Morrigan's cackling laugh echoing across all of Redcliffe castle as she walked away.


	15. Infectious Feelings

"You're quite taken with each other, aren't you?" Wynn commented as Kyrn stirred the stew pot. Their evening meal was long over, but she found the whirling trails in the dredges of the pot soothing. The night itched, darkness buzzing around her mind like a cloud of gnats.

She glanced over her shoulder, seeing only Wynn preparing to nag her, instead of the necrotic presence she had felt all evening. "What?"

"You and that rogue, Zevran," Wynn continued, "Half of us aren't getting any sleep with how you two carry on."

"We'll try to be quieter," Kyrn grimaced, mortification chilling her stomach. If she had any idea that they heard her that clearly, she'd have let Zevran gag her the last time he had jokingly offered.

"Oh," Wynn frowned uncertainly, "That's… kind of you… I suppose. Anyway," She coughed, "I've noticed your blossoming relationship, and I wanted to ask you where you thought it was going. It seems he only ever has one thing on his mind-"

Kyrn laughed aloud, "Are you worried he'll break my heart, Wynne?"

Wynne's normally pallid complexion warmed for a moment as she stammered, "I question the wisdom of a Grey Warden being involved in such an affair!"

Kyrn stood, tossing the stir stick out into the woods and sighed back at Wynn, "I'm a big girl, I can handle myself, healer."

"You are neither a 'girl' nor 'big'," Wynn emphasized with a flick of her finger in the air.

Kyrn glared back, clicking her tongue reproachfully, "Harsh words, Shem."

The weary healer sighed quickly, a short puff of exasperation as she rubbed her forehead, "You misunderstand. You are a Grey Warden. You do not have the luxury of being a woman. You must be _more_ than human-"

"I already am," Kyrn began to growl softly, the tense set of her shoulders making her distance from the older mage clear, "I am _Dalish_."

Wynn waved one hand dismissively, while the other held her brow in confoundment, "Must you cloud the issue with that attitude of yours? You cannot campaign against the Blight while your heart belongs to that man!"

Kyrn tensed further, fingernails biting into either arm as she crossed them, "My _heart_?! What are you talking about?"

"Isn't it obvious? Every time you two have the chance, you-" Wynn turned and snapped as Kyrn flopped down onto her waiting bedroll, arm alright tight across her eyes to block out the woman's yammering face. "Why, I never! At least have the decency to listen!"

She had already pulled her sleeping mat near the fire anyhow. Wynn might accelerate her eagerness for sleep, but she certainly wasn't moving her covers just to get away from her. Wynn continued to try and explain about duty and how she must become the hero of Ferelden or some other nonsense. Kyrn interrupted with a broken, sawing snore.

"Really!" Wynn snapped with exasperation. "At least show some common decency-" the old healer continued to mutter as she withdrew to her own tent, her voice eventually too low and far away to hear.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Kyrn shivered before pulling the blanket up to her knees. She flapped her linen slip against her chest, suddenly aware without the soup pot to distract her that she had been nursing a strange fever all evening. It was probably for the best that Leliana and Zevran were taking the guard rounds tonight, because she was a mess.

"And not because I'm in love. Bloody rot-brained Shems," Kyrn thought bitterly. Love didn't make you touch you face to check that your skin wasn't slipping away, or pant from the feeling that you were walking through a tunnel of fire.

She lost track trying to count the flickers of flame in the campfire, until she looked around to find them engulfing her, encompassing everything in eyesight. They burned on all sides, pops and cracks becoming a roaring din built up by thousands of voices, crying out a war chant of rattling screams and rage-filled snarls. Everything around her reverberated with tens of thousands of inhuman voices. Twice as many feet shuffled with vicious intent towards a giant serpentine shadow, broken only by a pair of indigo eyes, glaring down at her as a command was given in a voice too loud to make out, vibrating through her bones, liquefying her.

She awoke to the screeching sound becoming her own voice, as Alistair was shaking her shoulder roughly, his face white and beaded with sweat like her own.

"Shh! Shh… easy… you're awake, yes? Did you _feel_ that?" He soothed.

After screaming in her nightmare, she could only utter a small croak through her parched lips. She nodded her head when the words failed her.

"The Archdemon… It was like it… saw us," He said worriedly, turning and standing to stare into the void outside the fire's meager circle of protection. She rose, donning her armor with shaking hands, leather slipping out of her sweat-soaked grip even as she tried to align studs and straps, grapple on a belt, a gauntlet, anything before the inevitable attack they sensed drew near.

"TO ARMS!" Alistair bellowed, everyone jostling awake, tents rocked and packs upended just before the ground burst out beneath them. Gravel and dirt flew in all directions, snuffing the campfire and pelting tent canvas with debris like a cloudburst.

The ambush was accented with piercing cries, amplified by a half dozen more shrill calls as a second explosion from underground brought four more creatures to light. A monster the size of a boulder with bony limbs swatted Kyrn aside like she was merely in the way of it stretching.

She expected to see an ogre, or perhaps some particularly persistent genlocks as she scrambled back to her feet, but the creatures that came out of the ground were as far from human as a Dragon was to a Mabari. Their eyes glowed with a blood-red internal light, and every inch of them was hard, crisp and glossy with a stench of rotting viscera, like a giant dung beetle. It's forearms were hardly arms at all, but more like natural swords extending out from their jointed limbs.

She rolled away from the first swipe, grasping for her bow and taking every shot she could as the fiendish creatures doves into tents, tossed people aside like ragdolls and slashed at whomever got in their way. The forest echoed with deafening snaps and cracks as swords and daggers broke their carapaces, and screams of agony as a few of their crew took a sharp edge unexpectedly. She saw Zevran already up on one's back, thrusting his blades in between one creature's neckplates. At the same time, Morrigan had a fiendish look on her own face as she curled her hands in, drawing energy from one as she froze it into a solid lump. It screamed higher and higher pitch before falling over and cracking like an upturned sculpture. Alistair was concentrating on shouting and drawing their ire with his shield, bashing every foe he could reach and shouting with a barbaric growl, though his eyes flickered with panic and fear.

Leliana had fallen back behind Wynn's stalwart shields, holding her hand to her side, a trail of red twenty feet long stretched from her to one of the deceased horrors. Kyrn tried to ignore the carnage, focusing on putting her arrows where they would do the most good, and staying back from the creatures so they couldn't overpower her. In her half-assembled armor she was almost as vulnerable as the mages.

With a roar of laughter from Oghren, she realized the fight was over almost as fast as it had begun. As Wynn dropped down to mend the worst of Leliana's wounds and they all stumbled about picking through the thrashed camp to try and reassemble their lives, a wisp of worry nagged at her mind. She turned to and fro, observing the sight of burning firewood, shredded canvas and their randomly intermingled personal effects, before peering into the darkness beyond.

A thought brushed over her, wordless, a lover's whisper too quiet to comprehend. Again it came, but darkened, creeping across her mind like a slug. She followed it, despite the way it turned her spine to ice, surprised to find herself walking out into the dark bog, the squelch of her feet informing her better than her eyes could as they strained to adjust.

In the background she thought she heard someone calling out to her. She turned to see a pair of silvery eyes gazing back at her, before their owner stepped out into the half-light of a waning moon. His face was scabbed and grey, like a corpse long dead from some forgotten plague, but the vallaslin that curled up from beneath his jaw still showed, their emerald green unmarred by the passage of months.

"It can't be," Kyrn gasped, and she stepped back as he shambled towards her, his eyes flickering with a cold light as he revealed himself. "Tamlen?"

"You… lethallan…" He choked, as if his voice hadn't been used in weeks.

"Gods have mercy," Kyrn stammered, reaching a hand out to touch his face, wondering what had become of his lovely hair, once the color of ripe hazlenuts. The hair she'd run her hands through hundreds of times as they ranged the forests away from their clan.

With a hiss he withdrew from her touch, pain twisting his lips to a snarl, "Don't come near me! Stay away!"

"Tamlen!" Kyrn pleaded, "We… we can help you. I'm sure that-"

"No!" He snarled, cringing, hunched over, but his eyes still locked with hers, their cold glint reflecting back as he blinked rapidly, his expressing scrunching to pain as he withdrew. "No… helping me! The song… it is too loud now-"

Kyrn rubbed at the tears streaming down her face, hot and ugly as again and again he stepped back as she stepped forward to take his hand. The way he walked, the way he crouched, made shorter than her by how doubled over his back remained, reminded her of another lost soul she'd met in the depths of an old thaig.

"N… no… it can't be. I looked for you! I looked!" Kyrn squeaked, her voice tight and shrill as she cried, "You can't be blighted, YOU CAN'T!"

"I can't stop it," He growled, shoving her back with a hand she could clearly feel now was more claw than fingers, scales scratching over leather as he released his hold. "Don't want to hurt you," he forced out brokenly, "Please… stop… me."

With shaking hands she pulled the bow from over her shoulder, and plucked an arrow from her quiver. He was just another darkspawn now. "I've put down people less blighted," she tried to convince herself, "I've defeated a brood mother… I've killed countless cultists and maleficar and abominations. He's just another abomination… to … put down."

The sight notch on the bow wavered madly as her arms quaked. She should be able to do this blindfolded, with how close he was, but wod clicked against wood as her arms weakened. She gulped in breaths as her nose plugged up with sorrowful pleghm.

"I can't," she finally sobbed.

"Always… loved… you," he trembled as a spasm overtook him. His eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped into a feral howl, fangs impossibly long and set in vicious angles as he lunged towards her.

She closed her eyes, clenched her arms against the oncoming attack and cringed as a fluttering sound and then a wet impact broke the night. Blinking slowly, she watched Tamlen fall sideways into the ground, a dagger buried up to the hilt through his temple.

A ragged, panting breath broke the silence, and she turned to peer back at Zevran, his face contorted with terror as he withdrew a shaking hand from the air, his whole body slowly relaxing from a throwing posture.

Looking down at Tamlen's corpse, she could see the telltale green cord of suede wound around the dagger's hilt, confirming what she had already guessed.

"You killed him," Kyrn said flatly. They both stared at each other unblinkingly, even as Alistair ran up, shouting something incomprehensible. He wrapped his arms around tight, painfully tight as his chainmail dug into her bare arms. All the while she couldn't bring herself to look away from those golden eyes she thought she knew so well.


	16. Assigning Blame

A dozen years ago, as bright-eyed child she never imagined she would grow so close to the stumbling orphan city-boy her father dragged back to camp. A year ago, she could never have imagined life away from his side. Two months before, the thought of week after week spent in the company of humans would have turned her stomach.

And now her own people made her skin crawl. A week before she had cursed Leliana to the abyss and back for trying to tell an ancient elven lullaby like she owned it. Now the site of her sister clan had left her shaking, flushed, suddenly alert to every customary glance and nod. Each carved symbol on the aravels seemed to whisper to her, "Outsider."

The last few days had been a of formalities foreign even to her. In an odd turn of custom, the clan Keeper they had come to ask for help had turned to Wynn and Morrigan instead of her.

In the two long months she had been traveling in the service of the Grey Wardens, she had felt her clan's small daily rituals falling away like a dying leaves. Each loss felt like raw skin at first, until they faded like blisters turned to calluses. Now back amongst "her people" again, she watched and older woman with her eyes speak, "Andaran atish'an," and her own voice call back, "Ma Atisha," without a second thought.

She had hoped to hear the fast drums calling her to dance, or the quickly modulating notes of flutes asking her to whirl and grab her cousins' arms. She wanted nothing more than to skip around a fire and stomp her feet amongst people who understood hardship enough to understand the need for a good mindless, exhausting dance. This clan had their fill of exhaustion, in short supply of anyone healthy or whole enough to play music, let alone dance until dawn.

Amongst the clan and around their campfire she had taken to the Wolf and Mabari as her solitary company. It was much easier to avoid speaking to Alistair and Zevran with four golden eyes to keep them in check. It did not ease the arguments, though. Ogrehn had taken to drinking constantly, complaining that the woods were "The worst part of your rutting, sky-filled shit-country YET."

She had a hard time arguing. There was something inherently wrong in the woods, looming more sinister than the werewolves Zathrien had sent them to hunt down. It was like the drumbeat has off, and the pipes poorly drilled. The air was discordant.

Wynn chose to stay behind, surprisingly welcomed amongst the people for the healing spells she cast freely amongst the weary and injured. The rest of them struck out on a task that seemed doomed for bloodshed on all sides. It was all she could do to keep Zevran and Alistair from spilling more with their infighting. Ever since Tamlen had fallen, Alistair had rallied to her side un-asked, despite her constant requests for him to keep his distance. It finally took a snap of Mabari teeth around his shin-guard for him to take the hint and stay back.

He turned his nervous attentions to Zevran, questioning the Crow like they'd just picked him up from the middle of the road yesterday. At first he was calm, but more than a week of small jabs and prys, even his calm demeanor had fallen to veiled threats to, "cut out the arrogant noble bastard's tongue if he does not stop wagging it so much."

She had spent the past week in, silence or with a whistle to bring her fanged companions back to her side. She finally spoke to Zevran when they set out into the depth of the Woods, just long enough to command Zevran to stay behind. No matter how distraught his eyes looked behind his playful tone, she couldn't fault his obedience. He never questioned her request. He simply bowed, and then stood vigil at the nearest edge of the camp that he could, until they were so far into the mist that she couldn't even make out his silhouette in the distance behind them.

Lelliana, Alistair, and then Morrigan, followed Mahariel in blessed silence at a great distance. Mien'Tarel and Da'Fen'len flanked her, diving into the underbrush and bounding over boulders to either side as she did her best to stay well ahead. She told them it was to scout, but it was more selfish than that.

She concentrated on the signs in the forest. Each small indication of life was reassuring against the damp chill that permeated the fog. Each step squelched, the dead leaves sloshing with decaying slime and clung to her boots as she kicked through the troughs in the path.

By the time she heard the landmark waterfall in the distance, her ankles had begun to burn with the strain of keeping her footing amidst all the deadfall and moss. Behind her she could Morrigan cursed. A flint-like crackle of magical flames igniting echoed, alongside the choking smell of green vines smoldering.

It was because she smiled, wryly listening to be sure the witch was alright, that she missed the first sound of the creature approaching them. In dryer conditions, she might have heard lumbering feet crashing through the leaves piled around the water banks, or heard dozens of branches crackling underfoot like the forest popping it's knuckles, eager for a fight.

Instead she first heard the slap of large feet striking shallow water, and then the labored panting as a giant bear lumbered into the falls, tossing its head to and fro with a deep, moaning trumpet before stomping into the path she was scouting. Da'fen'len curled around her leg from behind, snarling and snapping his teeth defensively until she pressed a hand behind his ear.

"Desen, desen…" She hushed. The wolf's hackles twitched up and down, glancing from his human counterpart to the bear that loomed larger than their whole party combined. As she slid one foot forward cautiously, Alistair snapped to attention beside her.

"How did he catch up so fast?" she thought.

"What are you doing?" He hissed.

She shushed through the side of her gritted teeth without looking back at him, and stomped forward another step as the bear roared back at them in a voice so deep she felt the rumble in her bones more than she heard it. Its eyes were wide and bloodshot, but it's fur was healthy, unblemished by rabid foam or crusts of mange. She called to it softly, "Mortho."

"I don't know if this is quite the time-" Alistair started to stammer, reaching out to her just before she took another step forward. She locked eyes with it as best she could, feeling the muscles tense in her calves as she stood on tip-toe as tall as she could. It jutted up to its hind legs for only a moment, before flopping down to all fours to begin an agitated pacing across the bridge of stones crossing the falls.

"Mahariel!" Alistair called again, waving Lelliana back as the rogue drew her bow.

"Don't you dare strike him!" Kyrn turned and snapped as she heard Leliana's bowstring creak with tension.

It only took that moment looking away to loose the hold she had begun to feel on the beast. It lifted its eyes to the sky and sniffed frantically before looking back over its shoulder. Lumbering forms sprinted towards them from the distant haze. She looked to the bear again, risking another stride forward to try and reach it, knowing that if she could just touch it's shoulder reassuringly it might calm before she lost hold on the wolf, and had to face whatever creatures were coming this way.

"Kyrn!" Alistair panicked.

She clutched the bear's hide as it rounded on the werewolves. Her grip in its fur the only thing keeping her from falling off the edge. She scrambled for purchase, feeling nothing but air beneath her feet for a few heartbeats. As the bear jostled forward to posture, she grabbed tighter, and grappled around towards it'd back as it reared. She could feel the terror quaking through it; giant muscles rippled beneath her grip. There was no fat on the desperate creature to soften the ride as she was swung back and forth, only coherent of the rush of terror in her own limbs as she clung on for dear life.

Alistair called her name again, and now she could hear Leliana shouting "I can't get a clear shot!" Snarls from Da'Fen'len, growls from Mien'Tarel, and more feral shouts echoed around her as the world spun. She shouted for her hounds to hold, to fall back, but she could hardly tell the difference between their yelps and the snarls of the Werewolves, whose forms were clear to her now, gouging deep red valley's into the bear's hide as they tried to attack her and make their way around the enraged beast to strike at Alistair and Morrigan.

Morrigan started and fizzled several spells, shouting damnation at the situation as the waterfall bridge continued to be bottled up by the enraged creature she clung to. Back and forth she swung, trying moment by moment to climb towards it's back so she could at least hop off without injury.

A deep guttural warcry, a booming roar of pain and the bear loomed backward. It flailed its arms defensively as blood poured from it's torn face. It fell backwards, crushing her into the waterfall. The world cracked phosphorescent white and then snapped to black. The roar of rushing water drowned the currents until she tumbled into the wet ledge.

She barely saw the boulders tumbling behind her, and saw the glint of Alistair's armor rushing at her. The bear's roar continued, unending as the Werewolves' snarls faded into the distance. Something struck her side, tossing her forward, sliding across loose river rocks and blood-soaked mud as she felt the jagged grip of a gauntlet around her arm. The wind spiraled over her, stomach vaulting as she spun in freefall a moment before striking her shoulder into a rock, and then rolling hard into her side, and finally landing with a deafening metallic clang and on what could only be Alistair's armor.

The skirmish continued, somewhere high above. Between the ringing in her ears, the wheeze of own breath beneath cracked ribs and the distance, it sounded no louder than a few Halla clicking their antlers together in greeting. She could just make out Morrigan's voice, low and calm and accentuated by the smooth drone of fires bursting to life on her victim's hides.

"Ugh…. Kyrn," Alistair finally moaned after a while.

She couldn't bring herself to respond. All her energy was spent breathing. She's cracked a rib before. That was painful. This was an all-encompassing throb like death had personal run a dagger through her stomach, and up into her windpipe. Her right side wouldn't respond as she tried to wiggle. Trying to bend her leg up shot pain from her hip all the way up to her neck. Trying to twist her hip to roll off him lit a fire in her spine that make her dizzy as black spots clouded her eyes.

"Alright," He smacked his lips together. "Alright, I think I can get us-" He grunted with exertion as he twisted to dislodge her. She screamed as the pain manifested itself all at once, and then flopped helplessly into the mud. She almost missed her own face as her hand shook, but she finally wiped enough mud from her face to see where they were.

Water trickled down the edge of a steep embankment. Their fall had taken them down a tube of washed away earth, down thirty feet of silt she didn't think she could climb back up even if she wasn't broken and shambling. The only upside was the sinkhole they had been washed into had an exit somewhere, because despite the trickle of water from the walls flowing down to them, it wasn't pooling up.

"At least we won't drown while we," Alistair groaned as he forced himself up to a sitting position, "Wait for our friends to save us…"

She started to chuckle, and then gasped as her diaphragm was lanced with pain. "Not cracked. Broken?" She thought bitterly. As she tried to sit up as well, her arm collapsed out from under her, the muscles convulsing as her shoulder radiated pain like she'd been struck by lightning.

Mercifully, Alistair finally understood how pathetic her situation was, and pulled her up to him, leaned into the crook of his arm so she was supported by the solidity of his pauldron and vambrace. There seemed to be a dent collapsed into his chest plate that just fit her shoulder.

"Did he save me," she thought bitterly, "or make it worse?" With a wince, she tried to concentrate on breathing past the chest spasms.

"Fine pair we are," Alistair finally chuckled, and then regretted it as he coughed.

She simply nodded. That at least didn't seem to hurt much.

"I don't," Alistair stammered. "I don't know what I'd do if you were-"

"I don't love you," Kyrn grumbled.

A single howl cut through the waterfalls. Then a lower, growling howl. A single wolf and a single mabari calling out a victorious fight, and a fallen master.

"What?" Alistair sputtered, incredulity raising his pitch, "I didn't-"

"I'm sorry," she coughed. "I teased. I accepted that rose from you… that's all," She hissed as she readjusted to get his armor to dig less of a notch into her kidneys.

"I," He murmurred remorsefully. "I never expected-"

"And I'm sorry," She continued. "For being so harsh to you and Leliana. You misjudged me… I'm not perfect…"

Alistair finally let the silence sit. For a while it was just her breath, now with the added contrast of a quiet burling deep in her chest she didn't like the sound of. She bided her time trying to figure out which parts didn't hurt now, rather than which ones DID.

"Tell me about Tamlen," He asked hesitantly.

She blinked, listening to the new quiet in the woods. She couldn't even make out Morrigan's angry shouts, or Lelliana's distressed cries. Maybe they went for help? "I'm going to need a drink before I talk about him."

"I don't have-"

"Can you reach my satchel?" She pointed a few feet away to where her bag had fallen, most of the contents spilled, but the flask of spirts still safe enough with it's waxed cork.

He nudged his sword scabbard forward, and managed to drag the bag towards them, pulling flasks and muddied bandages in it's path. She tried and failed to uncork it, yelping in pain. He cracked the seal for her, and tipping the flask to her lips. She drank eagerly. One sip, two, then a deep swig before she nudged her head into his grip to tell him to stop.

The spices burned her throat, but her breathing grew easier. It couldn't mend the bones, but it could dull the pain. As big of a swig as she had taken, it would dull more pain than just her bones. It would dull her mind for a while.

"What's in this? It smells like rotten undergarments."

"Secrets," she rasped.

She told him of eight years growing up together, and chasing each other through ancient groves her people avoided, and hiding beneath tree roots so large a halla might fit beneath them. She told him about how they got their Vallas'lin on the same night, and pledged their lives to each other beneath a crescent moon, and made love more times than she could count, as foolish young lovers do.

She could hear the embarrassment in the silence and the way Alistair shifted this way and that as she said the words, 'make love' aloud. Her head was cloudy and her throat raw by the time she got to the dark temple they had found, and the evil that awaited inside the innocent-seeming ancient mirror.

And she wept, gulping sobs she couldn't lift her hand to wipe away. When she told him how she couldn't bring herself to kill Tamlen, but Zevran could.

*,*,*

Alistair had seemed quite smug at the sight of Zevran with a red mark across his face. Kyrn was sobbing hysterically. He had tried to pry the damn Templars arms from around her. He knew she didn't want Alistair's attentions, and he knew it should be his arms comforting her, his lips in her hair, his breath on her ears to console her.

But as soon as he wrestled the Fereldan away, she turned and struck him sharply across his face, before shambling past both of them, her face a blur of tears and mud as she wailed, "Ir Lethallan!"

They had both stared at her fleeing form, until Alistair broke the silence to ask, "What does that mean… Ir Lethallan?"

Alistair's concern turned to open mockery as Zevran gawped back. He must have looked quite a sight with his mouth hanging open, cheek enflamed and dried gore splattered across his usually immaculate figure. The bastard had no idea how ludicrous he sounded. Did he really not know such a basic phrase of Dalish after all his pining and poor attempts to endear himself to Kyrn?

"So?" Alistair continued, "You seem to know. What did it mean?"

He didn't dignify the man a response. As soon as he had returned to the fire, he knew there would be many cold nights to come, alone in the remains of his demolished bedroll. Kyrn's blankets were gone, and she would not be found until the next morning.

Despite her confession outside the temple, it seemed her husband had clung to a scrap of life.

And he had killed him. In front of her.

The moment hounded him ever since. He slept plagued by nightmares, watching her devoured by Tamlen, the man she still loved. Other nights he saw each and every one of them turned to silver-eyed fiends alongside him. Worst yet, was feeling her teeth at his own throat, a wicked smile on her face as his blood dripped from her mouth, pressing crimson, blighted lips against Tamlen's dry grey mouth.

Again and again he awoke sweating like he was beside the fire with Kyrn, but immediately the cold struck his skin. Each shiver was reminder him he was still alive, and though the night terrors were there, the husk of Tamlen was very much dead.

Kyrn had stayed close by the fire the past fortnight. She spoke to no one, and barely made eye contact except with Morrigan and Wynn, whose constantly insisted she at least eat and rest. He never would have guessed they had such a friendship before he saw the glint of concern in the two women's eyes.

He was willing to give her the space she needed. He had seen the look she gave him before, in his own eyes, as he punched the mirror in the Antivan brothel where he and Taliesan hid. After their botched mission. After he understood the full extent of the terrible mistake he'd made.

But he wasn't willing to leave her side. Even if he had to move in the shadows, and stay apart from her so he could watch her passage and track their path to trace one of his own parallel to hers. He did not expect the heartache it would bring him, though. To watch her body slide helplessly down the waterfall, and to see the useless templar try to shield her, only to fall to his own injury beside her.

It took all he had not to call out to her. To shout her name, beg her to awaken as she lay sprawled in the muck, broken and silent. He strained to see, but couldn't tell if she breathed or not. Only that the oaf was still speaking to her, giving him hope she would recover.

It was a short sprint to catch up to Morrigan and Leliana. The witch nearly singed him in her surprise. It did not take long to combine their supplies and bind together enough rope to make a gurney to get them out.

He set back out to watch over them as Leliana and Morrigan prepared the tree for the hoist, listening to the terrified lilt of Kyrn's voice. He hadn't heard her so sad since the temple. He listened as she told Alistair about Tamlen. Some he knew, some was new to him. As she choked out a description of how that night had gone, two weeks ago, he felt shame and determination twine together.

"I couldn't kill him…" She trembled. "But… but… he could…and I can't bear to look at him... "

"I'm so ashamed," She whispered. He almost didn't hear it, but he had blocked everything else out, to focus his fury at his helplessness onto her voice.

"Ashamed?" Alistair asked. "Why? It's not your fault… anyone would-"

"I'm not ashamed about that! I'm ashamed that I blamed him! I can't… I don't even know how to tell him how I feel!"

Alistair chuckled, a loud guffaw that echoed up to the trees. "You could just… TELL HIM you fancy him?"

Kyrn's sobbed over the top of Alistair's laugh, "I don't KNOW how I feel! It's like I'm going mad when I'm around him. I feel terrible. I felt that way before my love was even in the ground!"

"You couldn't know-"

Kyrn's righteous snarl shot up, "I should have!" She coughed for a while, and finally continued, "It's supposed to be… like… one heart, between two people! But I felt _nothing_ ! For two months! I had no _idea_! He was just… gone! And I was tainted… I.. I _hoped_ he was gone. Dread Wolf devour me, but I had HOPED him DEAD! Quickly, snuffed out like a candle, I had no idea…"

Zevran leaned back into the shadows as he contemplated all he had heard. She finished with a tremble in her voice, "no idea of the torment he was in!"

Alistair's silence spoke more than his words, as Leliana and Morrigan finally hailed him to take the ropes.

He heard her muttering as he lowered the knotted ropes down to them, "Andruil and Andraste… we serve cruel gods, you and I."

She had fallen back into a stupor as Alistair tied her in, and they raised her out first. She was only cognizant a moment as they tugged her over. Her hand snapped out and grabbed hold of Zevran's, entwining their fingers together as her eyes opened wide to lock with his. A faint smile flickered across her face, before she murmured something incomprehensible, and was surrendered over to Morrigan's sub-par healing magics.

His disdain dissolved to worry. He felt no pleasure or irritation in helping Leliana to hoist up the Templar, even despite the man's ridiculously heavy armor. His mind was elsewhere, watching Kyrn's uneven breathing slowly steady as Morrigan patched her together as best she could with her rudimentary knowledge of blood magic.

"Cruel gods indeed," Zevran murmurred.


	17. Keeping Watch

The first day after the fall she was carried on a stretcher, and graciously, someone provided her sips of her Fen'aslin each time she started to cry out. When she awoke the second day by the fire, she was sweating from the number of blankets they had piled on her.

The Wolf's Blood had left her with a pounding headache, but strangely, the world seemed quiet and her mind felt clear. It wasn't until she tried to move the blankets off herself that she realized how weak and sore she still was. Sitting up was a strain, but at least her shoulder felt whole again. They had left Alistair to watch over her (he was in no condition to fight himself) and she learned when the trio returned that they had already found a way through to the werewolves lair, with the aid of a bargaining Treant and some slight-of-hand thievery on Leliana's part.

"Perhaps I'm not nearly so important as I thought," she grumbled to herself as they hiked to the ominous ruins, the home of "Witherfang", and from the feel of the place, some long forgotten Elven citadel. Blessedly they hadn't expected her to carry her pack in her condition, but there was no being carried the second day. Once they made an uneasy camp within the moss-deckled stones, she offered the first watch, and took up a perch on a crumbling causeway overlooking the decayed courtyard that Morrigan, Leliana, Alistair, and Zevran had unpacked in.

Her last bow, a cheap Antivan knock-off that she'd pulled from highwayman's corpse had shattered beside her in the fall. Leliana had a spare, (where did that woman keep so many weapons on her person, unnoticed?) but it was smaller and less powerful than the last. Combined with the fact that the damp of the forest seemed to have warped the wood slightly, she set about adjusting and adapting it as best she could as she began her watch.

Soon she settled into a rhythm, humming an old ballad about a woman who fell in love with a tree spirit. She chuckled, thinking the tale might appease whatever ancestral spirits they were bound to offend as she was lead a trio of Shems into their resting places.

"Zevran," She called out before sighting him in the gloom. The man always reeked of mink's foot oil, but today he also exuded a sour stench of fearful sweat - a strange combination for him.

"Lupita, your senses amazing as ever," He chuckled, creeping into the gloom of her solitary candle.

"I think my nose was the only thing I _didn't_ injure," She smirked, and looked back out into the forest. A moment too long and she might see the handle, wrapped in green suede cord, buried to the hilt.

"Mi bella?" He asked softly. When she turned to him, she saw the slant of his eyebrows cast into deep pockets of shadow, and the vertical grooves in his cheeks where those lips, so full and soft, were pulled tight with worry. In her mind, his shadowed expression was replaced by one lit by a campfire, eyes wide with silent, tense terror as his arm slowly lowered.

She was surprised that she thought of his face, and not Tamlen's. His fear, and not Tamlen's inhuman visage.

He must have asked a few more things as she reminisced, because he touched her shoulder and she bolted to attention as he crouched before her, scrutinizing her like Morrigan had while the witch forced the lifeforce of the others into her veins, reassembling her from the inside out.

"Aren't you happy to be with your people again?" He repeated. "You'll gain their support, as you have all the others! Everything will be well!"

She shook her head, "These are not _my_ clan. My mother left me as a baby, my father is dead, my lethallan... dead." She stammered, "My clan is gone. Fled to the north, across the frozen sea, where I will never dance with them again, never see them or touch them or hear their stupid," She sniffed sloppily before she found enough breath to continue, "stupid stories again. And now some fen'edrin cousin-clan demands I sort out their demons to earn the aid I'm rightfully owed? Pfah!" She threw up her hands, "Fen'Harel take us all."

Zevran blinked back in surprise, drumming his fingers over her knee in contemplation, "But surely, they would be like your extended family, yes? They say the Dalish are-"

"Imagine," Kyrn snapped, "That the Crows whisked you back to Antiva, not to bring you back into the fold, but to do a mission for them, a very terrible mission that might devour your very _soul_ , and without even the promise that they wouldn't kill you again at the end."

He snorted, thumbing his lip as he looked away, "That _does_ sound like something they would do. But I never really _liked_ the crows. At least you _liked_ your clan."

She didn't know what to do but smirk. Despite her misgivings his company was reassuring, but talking was the last thing she wanted. It seemed like everyone wanted to pry open each wound and see the bones laid bare beneath. "You should be quiet," She whispered. "I am supposed to be keeping watch."

A flash of mischief crossed over his face. He said not a word, but slid down next to her, wedged between her hip and the short wall she rested her drawing arm against.

"What are you-?" She hissed.

"Shh," he reprimanded, "you are supposed to stay quiet, yes?" He wriggled down further, and she was starting to worry about what kind of trouble he was trying to get her into, when she felt the tips of his gloves tracing up the backside of her thigh. He pressed in with his other hand, cupping the lower edges of her butt, pressing up firmly until she couldn't help lifting her hips to accommodate his hands. He seized the moment and her pants and tugged, bringing the belt and waistband with them, and almost dragging her bodily from the cushion she'd made of a folded up blanket.

"Stop that-!" She squeaked reproachfully.

Curling his hands up, he pressed into her mound from either side, and grinned as he breathed into the side of her leg. "They cannot see me from here. Look over the edge and tell me. Did anyone wake?"

Angling over the side, she only saw the stoic figure of Morrigan idly stirring the cooking pot, and Leliana and Alistair's still bundled forms on the ground outlined by the fire. The distinct rumble of snoring echoing up from the campsite. As she observed them, Zevran lifted her legs enough to shimmy beneath her knees and planted his mouth directly onto her mound.

With a yelp of surprise, she clenched her knees together grasping the masonry with a deathgrip. Feeling the slight vibration of his curse of, "Braska!" she eased up, and grabbed his to glare down at him. He shot her a another conspiratorial wink, and pulled the glove from his right hand. Against the force of her grip, he tilted his face back down to his target.

"What are you do-o-ohh," she moaned before she could help herself. As he began to nibble and press through her smallclothes, she realized that despite all the times she'd tasted him, she hadn't yet let him return the favor. His eagerness was proven by the way he suckled and breathed in her scent through the soft linen, fingers finding the edges between the straps that kept her hip-guards in place, and the straps that kept her pant legs held up to her belt.

Soon his touch found more warmth, thumb slipping under the edges of her smallclothes to press open the folds of her slit. He inhaled, long and slow, making her shiver from her navel to her neck at the hum of his lips. The cold night air made even the tiniest hairs on her thighs stand up.

Spiraling rough fingertips around her legs to loop his thumbs through the sides of her panties, he dared her, "Tell me to stop, and I will."

Her throat tightened as she tried to say it. Her mind reeled to feel her Lethallan's second killer making himself comfortable between her legs. Less than two months ago he had tried to kill her himself, without malice or concern of any kind. Every night since was the result of a failed business transaction.

Her eyes welled up with need, the pain of sore joints and too many deaths pressing in on her chest as Zevran began to extricate himself. As he tried to lift his head, she pressed it back down, twisting her hand to tighten her grip on his hair.

"I'm a fool," she whispered hoarsely.

"Qua-?" Zevran muttered.

Licking her lips, she demanded, "Don't stop, not until I'm satisfied."

"As my warden commands," he wasted not a moment more, tugging her towards him to press her knees to her shoulders, slipping her smallclothes out of the way and twisting himself from her grip on his hair. He dove back down with a hunger, tongue swirling fiercely over her clit. As he bit her lip she thought, "Tamlen was never so eager!" She relaxed into the intense rhythm of his fingers massaging her folds as he lapped and swirled with a dexterity that bordered on excruciating. She hooked her fingertips into the back of his armor, tensing as he delivered each strike as skillfully as a dagger.

Her breast plate chafed heavy and warm, but it was too late to unfasten. The heat of her own body was suffocating as she breathed faster and faster to keep up with his pace. Just as she felt the tension grow, thought for sure he would bring her to the peak with his tongue alone, he ebbed and slowed and then looked up over the crest of her heaving chest, and smiled deviously, his face drenched from the tip of his nose to his chin and out past both cheekbones.

She sat up and scowl at him, "I want you inside me."

"Is that so?" Zevran crooned. He nudged forward as if to unbuckle his cock and take her on the spot, but instead he pulled off his right glove, and pressed his palm down onto the top of her mound. He slid down, pressing harder inch by inch until his fingers coiled inside her. With a firm pressure he hooked his fingers upwards, sliding back and forth as he rocked his palm over the minge, spiraling his thumb patiently as she tipped her head back, biting back a screech.

"Look at me," he whispered by her ear. She turned into his other hand, filling her nostrils with minks foot and blade oil, sighing as his calloused fingers slid over her cheek to brush a stray braid from her eyes.

"Tell me to go," He thrust his hand in, "And I will go," and pulled it out and over her clit, and then thrust in again. "I will ask nothing more of you, then you are willing to give," he whispered, staring into her eyes as she succumbed to the skillful tilt of his hand.

Again he ground his palm down slow for a moment, then fast, and paused to lean forward. "Just tell me-" he started to say.

"What could I give you?" She panted. "We have more gold than we can spend-"

Zevran chuckled quietly, and continued to tease her.

"I don't have a life to give you. No children, nor a family name."

He paused.

"Just a cursed, short, bitter life… one day I'll probably beg you to kill me, you know-"

"Don't-"

"It's true," She dragged his mouth to hers with a tug to his pauldrons. She could taste herself on his lips, old cinnamon and salt tack and the scent of a forest in heat. He broke the kiss and gulped in a breath, tried to respond, and she cut him off again to hiss, "I'm not done with you yet! Don't you _dare_ go! "

"Where would I go?" He whispered, a reverent gleam in his eye as he curled his hand inside her. He wasted no more time, and extracted a climax from her then that had her screaming against his lips, sucking the breath from him to keep from waking the whole camp. As she quivered and leaned back into the after-throws, he groaned and leaned down to bury his head in her neck. His manhood pressed into the inside of her thigh. She could feel him throb against her leg as he moaned against her neck with clenched teeth.

"I won't ever ask you to leave again…," she pleaded a whisper, and quickly kissed his lips again. "You never need ask. Take what you need from me."

He had no more wit or banter, just an exhale of relief as he unlaced his pants enough to release his shaft and bury between her legs amidst the moist heat he'd cultivated there. Though already satisfied, the sound of him grunting into her neck and the hard thrust of his hips brought her close to a second high in the short time it took him to expend himself and fall back against her with a satisfied sigh.

They lay for a brief moment entwined, barely bothered by the odd squeak of leather and studded mail scraping against each other's armor, before the persistent sound of owl and insects reminded them of where they were.

"I should actually _watch_ the camp now," Kyrn coughed.

"Much as I would like to repeat our fun, I agree," Zevran chuckled as he made a show of wiping his face on her blanket. "You SHOULD get some rest."

"But I'm-"

"Still injured," Zevran cut her off. "Come now. My eyes are as good as yours. Even if my nose is not-" He readjusted his pants, helped her with hers, and then tugged her towards him to lean against him as he nestled himself into a good site-line between a pair of collapsed stones.

Morrigan looked up at them as a pebbles sprayed down the side of the old parapet, but returned to minding the fire with a new smile on her face.

The witch would certainly drown her in knowing sneers the next day, but for now she was high above that problem. While several blankets couldn't disperse the discomfort of leaning against a man in hardened leather plate, she was soon comforted by the even rise and fall of his breath. True to his training, Zevran quickly fell back into a silent, even breath, and watched the forest with sharp eyes as hers became heavy.


	18. Shadow of Death

Wynn returned to the camp before Kyrn had awakened from her injuries. The Clan needed her more as the number of victims grew, and more still fell to an outbreak of dysentery. She thought about how comforting the older woman's arcane light would have been to guide them as the temple's shadows curled in from all sides. Twining vines and roots hung along every vertical surface, so spindly and elongated you couldn't trace where their mother plants drew sun. As they stepped through the first few chambers, Kyrn felt the sky's absence painfully. She took one last glance back at the early dawn mist, bright as a morning of fresh snow compared to the old stone passageways. Da'fen'len shrunk back and whimpered a brief protest before following her down the steps. With a crack of flint and steel she lit a torch, and they all seemed to finally breathe, hesitating at the first set of alien murals.

"Do you know anything of this place?" Morrigan pondered, running her hands along the low-relief carvings in her usual sacrilegious manner.

Kyrn only shook her head. "Not my lands… stories too old… I don't recognize them."

In the painting, a figure offered a hand as if to help someone up, a shepherd's crook in the other hand, and owl perched on his shoulder. A multitude gathered around him, attentive peasant, or perhaps and army. They were numerous black silhouettes with thin green outlines made from glinting olivine. As she looked closer his hand changed, and a a small red square was drawn within it. The square became a jagged crystal, pulsing like lifeblood, held out to a kneeling supplicant.

The torch went out, and her mind fell into the coiled darkness.

*,*,*

Zevran was not expecting deep conversation, but the silence that Kyrn exuded as they progressed was different. They cut their way through nests of giant spiders and Morrigan lit the rising bones into plumes of fire. Kyrn remained silent, her eyes following the half-hidden murals that lined the walls rather than meet anyone's gaze.

Wiping away a new layer of viscera form his face, Alistair strained to smile, "So, are we still on track to find this _Witherfang_ we've been sent for?"

A high, loud roar echoed from down a web-covered stairway, and Kyrn nodded and pointed toward the sound. With barely a moment to catch their breaths, she dashed down the stairs as if pulled.

There was no deciding to attack the great scaled beast that leapt down from the ceiling. Kyrn ran in at full tilt, and it was all the rest of them could do to follow and try to draw it's attention away as she volleyed it with arrows.

Morrigan rained down fire and caustic acid , so when he and Alistair reached it, the creature's skin cut away under their blades and left an acrid smoke in the air. He had to scramble around the beast furiously as it weaved around, snapping its jaws at whatever target was nearest. Alistair caught it's teeth head on, and both he and the beast bellowed with pain as the platemail held, but buckled under the pressure.

Leliana took to the other side, taking up a crossbow and striking true with one bolt after another into its ribs. As Zevran caught the beast's tail in his hand and leapt to it's back, it struck him for a moment how much easier this had become. When he joined the Crows, he never imagined there would come a day he considered a Drake to be such a little challenge. Of course, there was no way he would have ever been in such a situation. Lords hire a lower sort of mercenary to deal with animals than they do to deal with _rivals_.

The beast spun and roared, sending his feet sliding on its backside. For a moment he was in midair, before he caught hold by two daggers struck deep into the ridge of its back. With a few more good scrambles he could have reached it's head, maybe got in a good strike to its neck as Alistair played chew-toy and Morrigan held it in place with fire surrounding it.

Then he heard four things almost simultaneously. A fast crack of snapped cord, Kyrn's startled cry of pain, the wet slurp of an arrow driving deep through the drake's eye socket, and then gasping quiet as a roar was severed.

Its scaled shivered, and it's muscles quaked as all it's weight bore down on itself, slumping to one side so fast Zevran could only tip with it and roll away hoping he didn't impale himself on one of the many haphazard piles of old treasure and detritus scattered around. He coughed as the roll landed him in an unyielding slope of old brass coinage, the irony not lost on him that money was pain.

Still bleeding from the snapped bowstring, Kyrn approached the furthest pile. She was not searching, as the rest of them were, for some fortunate treasure or hidden artifact that might give them an edge in their struggles. She shoved a large beam aside and plucked a delicate bow from a pile of clothes that broke into rags as soon as the weapon was removed.

The glint in her eyes flickered, as if a shadow passed between them. She reconnected the bowstring and gave the weapon an appraising stretch, eyes focused intently on the far wall of the dragon's lair. Plucking an arrow from the detritus, she sighted, pulled, and released. The arrow struck deep and swift with a sound so loud it made everyone pause their searching from the loudness of it. The head and shaft were embedded deep in the stone, and the fletchings and the rest shattered by the sheer force of the shot.

She didn't answer as he called after her, nor when Morrigan or Leliana protested her proceeding without them. The rest of their crawl through the catacombs below the temple became a marathon, as she proceeded without stopping, each arrow striking home with a cold efficiency none of them had seen before. Her single-mindedness brought them all trouble, as they worked to keep off ambushing skeletons and strike at spiders and the werewolves that launched forth from her blind spots.

Despite protests, injuries, and the corpses strewn around them. The shadow that had passed over her eyes before was like an aura now, and it chilled Zevran's spine any time he drew near her.

She shot through the undead, the spiders, and as the werewolves begged her to listen, she struck them down to, until they stormed after the fleeing survivors and barreled straight into Witherfang's domain.

*,*,*

Screeching insects. Bones cracking against the song of steel. Clawed feet scraping over stone, dislodging rotted wood in their wake. An old man cried out in pain, and her eyes snapped open.

Her bow was draw, the site-line clear to Zathrian's forehead. He glared up at her with pain and bitter hatred. Blood pooled beneath him from his shoulder and leg, and she could make out the faint gurgling in his breaths from the blood slowly filling his lung.

"Kyrn!" Zevran shouted hoarsely, as if he'd been calling to her for a long time.

"Falun'Din will wait no longer," Kyrn said, before she could understand why.

Beyond Zevran, Alistair stood with blade ready and eyes darting between her and the wounded she-wolf at the center of the great cavern. Leliana stood poised with a blade hovering over one of the less injured werewolves, and Morrigan made no effort to hide that she was a breath away from turning Kyrn into a funeral pyre.

Her shoulder twitched of its own accord, the masterfuly carved wood of the bow not creeking so much as whispering as the draw tightened.

"Take the bow," Kyrn whispered, and her throat tightened. "Strike me down…"

She would credit Alistair's swordsmanship much later. With one lunge and a precise swing he notched his blade into the bow at the same time that Zevran dropped his daggers and threw his whole weight into tackling her.

The dark power shattered as the bow was cleaved and she fell back into a quieter abyss before her body struck the ground. The weight of her body was the first sensation to return to her, like falling down the waterfall again, landing in her skin like waterlogged mud.

Her vision returned slowly. At first all she saw was rough felted fibers over her face. They were not her usual traveling blankets, because all around her was the familiar musk of halla, and the fine, coarse texture of a felt made from wilder fiber.

"We worried you'd never wake," Lelina said softly. She peeled back the top most blanket, and held out a small bowl. Kyrn took it in shaky hands and sipped warily.

It took a few long sips and a painful bout of coughing before she could reply, "What happened?"

"Morrigan says it was a remnant? Or a small _god_? She used old words I didn't quite understand. Something had you, Mahariel…" Leliana shook her head as she gently put her index finger to Kyrn's forehead, then turned to peer back at the center of the camp. They were back with the Elven clan again. There was no sign of the afflicted and injured. The voices all around them were higher, lighter, and speaking faster. It was obvious that they had finished the task despite all her hindrances.

"It was Falun'Din," Kyrn responded.

Leliana squinted back at her, "Isn't that your god of _death_? However did it-"

"He," Kyrn coughed, pushing herself upright against the aravel wheel they had bundled near. "He is the one who guides the dying to the lands beyond the veil…"

"We smashed that bow!" Leliana snapped, as if she thought Kyrn might not remember that. Her anger was justified. Searching her mind, Kyrn could remember almost nothing of the temple, save for a feeling of darkness slowly enveloping her, and the feel of a perfect bow in her hand. One that drew and shot with hardly a whisper of complaint, and delighted in running her enemies through.

"Did I harm any of you?" She asked sincerely, searching Leliana's face for a sign of some terrible event.

"No," Leliana bit her thumbnail, and looked away. "Not us… in fact… it's not how I would have wanted it, but you put the fear of the Maker into those two."

"Two?"

"WItherfang, _and_ Zathrian."

"They're dead now, aren't they?" Kyrn asked flatly.

Leliana merely nodded, and with an awkward pat to her shoulder, wandered back to the gathering around the fire.

"You're Mahariel's daughter, aren't you?" A man asked from above her. She looked up to see the concerned eyes of a greying, older elf, whose simple tunic was stained dark and unevenly with tanin. Both his wrists were bound with ironbark gauntlets tied in intricate knots of hemp.

Kyrn nodded, and the man continued, "He was the Sabrae Keeper's mate for a time, wasn't he? You carry many of his features. He spoke at a gathering once, telling us we all needed to voyage into the Shemlen world and learn their ways. He would be proud to see his daughter a Grey Warden, I think."

Kyrn nodded again, and wiped the damp from her eyes with a shaking hand. "Perhaps."

"I'm sure you must leave again soon. And your companions, though they are Shems, managed to bring back some of the ironbark I requested. Here. It is the least we can give you, for your efforts."

Into her hands he placed a longbow, plain to look at, but heavier than it appeared for it's size. As she flexed it experimentally, it sighed like a sapling tree and then whipped back hard enough to knock the blanket from her legs with a loud whistle of air.

"And this," He held a wide translucent strip aloft, and she gasped.

"Hallagut? Oh no…"

He shook his head, "It may have seemed inconsequential, but you recognized that animal that was ill as you passed into our camp. If we'd killed the nervous Halla and not the sick one, the rest of our herd may have died instead. We had to burn and bury the meat to be safe, but we cured it's hide and strung out the gut for string and waterproofing. The bones will make fine jewelry and the horns will eventually play songs that the herd will hear.

"Abelas, ma seranas," She whispered, coiled the strip around her hand and held it close to her heart.


	19. Forests and Walls

Living in the service of a grey Warden was never easy, but Denerim bought a new level of difficulty to their lives. Zevran had already spent the better part of three months on the road, down in the brush, and climbing the highest mountains to help Kyrn appease every Teyrn, Keeper and Archmage they could convince to aid them. He couldn't put his finger on when her bedroll in his tent stopped being a casual treat, and became an assumption between them. Having two oilcloths and two bodies together helped keep the elements out. Now instead of cold gusts of wind and leaking trails of water waking him in the middle of the night, it was the feel of her cringing in her sleep. Each day her dreams grew darker. Her night-terrors became his as her shivering turned to convulsing, and her cries kept him from slumber as much as they did her. She endured the visions, expecting that their return to Arl Eamon's capital estate would be the linchpin to a real offense against the coming Blight.

Instead, they were greeted with shrugged shoulders and a to-do list of every beaurocrat's personal grudge, errand and misdeed piled before them. Though she hesitated to let Ogrehn out of their sight in the human capital, it was agreed by everyone that the only way to tackle the insurmountable list of tasks was to split up and scour the city for friendly ears as best they could. As long as he was by her side and babysitting the foul smelling, foul-mouthed dwarf, Zevran was content.

The list would have been much simpler as a Crow. Much easier to silence a objectionable tongue with a knife than with favors. He had to laugh at the irony as one of brotherhood's public faces offered to hire Kyrn's sharp-eyed talents for a few lesser assassinations. Kyrn looked ready to lay the man out on the spot, but a nod from Alistair towards the crowded inn made her think better of it.

Alistair's prudence did not stop Zevran from slitting the man's throat on the sly when the ignorant recruiter went out to the alley for an unguarded piss. Truly, the southern branch of his former associates were of a much lower caliber to their parent flock.

Since their arrival in Denerim, everyone from the lowest beggars to the multitude of court ladies were spread the word of the Arl's "Landsmeet." The nobles of Fereldan had set a date for some kind of public party to call out Loghain's misdeeds. The last time Zevran saw anything like a public outcry, gutters ran with peasant and noble blood alike by the following dawn. Nobles airing their grievances against the self-proclaimed King would have been a recipe for suicide where he was from.

Not even a day after their arrival, Eamon had called Kyrn and Alistair back to his Denerim estate, and conveniently kept the rest of them at arms length. He as no stranger to scaling a wall to eavesdrop, and the Denerim brickwork looked like no one expected a burglar to approach from above. How adorably naive.

To his surprise, it was Loghain himself, with the unscrupulous Rendon Howe trailing behind him, come in person for what purpose, Zevran couldn't guess, even after listening to the Regent below about duty and honor and blah blah blah. Honestly he couldn't recall a bit of what the Regent had tried to shove off on the Wardens and the Arl. It was Rendon Howe he was focused on. The man was a living reminder of a life that, until that moment, fell dead and distant.

As the man sneered something hateful down at Kyrn, though, his irritation got the better of him. He blew a whistle, faint and keen. The Howe looked up as Loghain continued to argue with the Arl. The man looked shocked, and then furious, drawing a finger across his own neck. Zevran couldn't help but sneer. Imagine, a man so pitiful he had to hire an assassin pretending he could be one himself. Zevran sucked the tip of his thumb and slapped his thigh. He doubted the nancy knew the full description but his affronted, red, enraged face said he understood well enough. Howe would have probably been a terrible cocksucker anyhow.

Wynne and Alistair seemed hopeful, but by the time Loghain extricated himself, nearly dragging a spiteful Howe after him, it was clear words without sharp knives to enforce them never amounted to anything.

Words did not rescue Queen Anora, who went missing from public life just after declaring ill will against her own father. Words would not heal the new rift between Alistair and his sister and words would not track down stolen shipments or missing noble heirs who had spoken out against Loghain. It was Leliana, and not words, that plucked a newly minted crown from the drunken hands of it's escort party, so it might be handed off to Alistair once the man had been brow-beaten enough to accept his duty.

And words would certainly not convince the Tevinter slavers to turn down their claim on the elves of the Alienage. But Kyrn's arrows in their throats did the trick. Though Zevran was annoyed at first to have the old mage hen clucking around them as they tried to investigate, Wynne proved herself to be invaluable as victims piled up, and dark magic was thrown at them from all sides.

They had gone to ask after strange disappearances and a possible plague, and their track had lead to hallways full of fear and blood, and a band of mages so drunk on stolen lives that they barely thought before offering Kyrn a sip of blood magic.

He'd never seen Kyrn raise a fist to someone when she could string an arrow, but she let loose her anger in blow after blow until it took his strength, Wynne's and Valendrian's to remove her from the Magister's corpse. Since then she had done little besides wash the blood from herself in the questionable waters of the alienage river, and watch the city elves assembling a party and stage around their sacred tree.

More liquor than he saw at most Antivan estates flowed that day, and he had goblets pressed on him from all sides. He offered one out to Kyrn, and she shook her head. He drank and took up a second round and offered again. She glanced at him mournfully, sighed, and drunk it in one gulp.

"Let me look to your wounds, child-" Wynne tried to placate as she held a glowing hand over Kyrn's arm.

Kyrn batted her hands away and snorted, "If you insist on healing someone, heal the survivors. _They_ need you. I will be _fine_."

Wynne shrugged and walked away as he watched his lady Warden. The woman had fought dragons, curses, darkness incarnate and seen the slaughter and mutilation almost a hundred of mages. She had fought nobles who would rather kill children than admit error, and countless other mortal monstrosities, but this seemed to wear on her more than all the others.

"They spoke like we were…. coins…or bolts of cloth," Kyrn finally whispered.

"That is not a uniquely _Fereldan_ mindset, lupita," he crouched down next to her, and pointed towards the stage that Valendrian and his community were covering in colorful garlands fashioned from rags and twigs. "You remember. I was sold to a brothel as a child. And sold again to the Crows."

"I had forgotten the details," Kyrn looked back at him as if she might cry, face flush with alcohol and rage. "Your mother was Dalish, wasn't she? And her clan abandoned her… I guess we're no better. The Clans are supposed to care for our own. But we're no better than humans."

"Not all of us," Zevran bent over and kissed the top of her head, and did his best to hide his regret as the grime of the city overpowered the flavor of the Alienage's crude wine. He accepted two more fills on their goblets. When he handed her the next round she leaned her head against his shoulder and twined her hand into his. She said no more, but he felt the rhythm of her foot tapping as a drumbeat went up in the plaza around the ancient tree.

"Does my dour Warden wish to dance?" He laughed, and swigged just in time for her to drag him up, sending the clay goblets clattering across the dirt.

"Hush," was all she said, before throwing her weapons down and pulling off the outer plating of her armor. As the last fastener clicked and the heavier gear fell to the ground, she inhaled a deep breath, and pointed to her feet. She pointed and guided him through a few basic steps. One foot forward, then back, and a small hop, and then a great leap. He'd never seen her as energetic in combat. She was so quiet and still in the wild, but the tempo had stirred a side he hadn't seen before.

He wished he could follow along better, but as agile as she was in dance, he couldn't seem to match, despite the decade he spent grappling over parapets and launching himself up gutters and rooftops. Soon other elves had taken her cue, and he wasn't the only one new to this style of step and hop. A cheer surged in the crowd, and more than a dozen others mimicked her. Kyrn backed away as a new melody joined the simpler drum beats. A lilting string and flute raised and lowered the tempo like ocean waves.

"I don't recognize this," Kyrn listened quietly. Her ears twitched slightly, as he'd only seen her do when she was tracking dinner. "They make music with strings?" She asked him, glancing between him and the amateur musicians on stage. "They rub wood against it, and it makes a sound. How strange."

He slid a hand around her waist from behind as she stared at the players. "They play something like them in Antiva. Violas. And Violas," he urged her forward, grasped her opposite hand in his and coaxed her to rotate. "Demand a Valta."

"A Valta?" She crooned the word softly. For an Antivan, the V was always bright and high, like the dance partner you lifted as the instruments sounded a chord before going silent for one heartbeat. On her tongue it was soft like the curve of her hip, that he took in his hand and pulled towards him to lift her, high as he could as they turned together. She paniced and latched her arm around his neck. He laughed as they almost tumbled over, and stumbled back to the ground.

"A little trust is needed, Bella."

With a nervous nod, she repeated, "Trust. Okay. Show me, then."

She caught on fast, and soon he could lead her on a twirl, a lift, and stepping in tandem. As the music thrummed they tilted and as the drums grew louder again they stepped and leapt, until he heard the rasp of his own breath against her neck and he realized that dancing was more tiring than dealing death ever was.

Her breath was hot against his neck too, and her arms wrapped over his shoulders as she commanded, "take me away from here."

With a turn, she shouted to Wynne, "We're headed back to the Arl's Estate!" The mage had been enjoying herself peacefully to the side, looking twice as drunk as either of them, and downright flirtatious with her equally old counterpart, Valendrian.

Wynne waved back an acknowledgement, and they were off, laughing and scooping up their things and tipping back and forth against each other as Kyrn dragged him along towards the river gate.

The crowd cried, begging them to stay longer. Children grasped at Kyrn's arms but she smiled and shook them off, shooing them back to their families.

Kyrn tugged him along eagerly, until he could help but observe, "This is not a very direct route to the Arl's Estate-"

"We're not _going_ to the Arl's estate," Kyrn looked up at the late evening sky, where the sun had barely begun to set. It was beautiful, until her stomach gurgled loud enough for both of them to hear. "Though I regret not eating anything."

"That, at least, I can fix."


	20. Good Cooking

"That was amazing," Kyrn moaned as she lay back onto the mats beside the fire. "I've never experienced anything like that. Where did you learn to do _that_?! My toes are still tingling from that second round."

Zevran chuckled as he plucked the spoon from her hands. "It would have been even better if I had rice, and not so much stale bread."

She rolled over and gazed longingly at the cookpot, propped up on her elbows. "What's that little bottle you keep hiding? I always assumed it was poison."

Zevran scoffed as he spooned up another mouthful for himself. "I should be honored that you trusted me to feed you poison. Braska… It's just some Llomerryn Red. I've been rationing it. It's almost impossible to find west of Rivain."

"I mean it," she purred. "Where did you learn to cook? How does an assassin make something so delicious from… I'm sorry but the things you put into that pot looked like chopped wood until I smelled otherwise."

"Well, you don't get a chance to grow old in a brothel if you're _useless_ ," he replied, and pressed his tongue into the hollow of the spoon in a way that made her think of other brothel pastimes.

"... Did they…. Did men force you to-?"

"Bed them?" Zevran smirked. "Rialto is not Llomerryn. No Madam would force a child to bed. I was barely eleven when the crows bought me. Though sometimes I wonder if that was really an improvement."

"But, did you," She couldn't quite mouth the words for how hot her face was getting. For a moment she remembered that coy smile on his face when he had first spoken of Alistair, long ago when she was dragging him through the mud and tending his wounds like a child.

"Did I what?" Zevran echoed her playfully, and leaned over to press a spice-laden kiss against her lips.

"Take men… as… to…" Kyrn stammered to say the words aloud. She wasn't sure what put the question to mind, but now that it was there, she struggled to press the image of men grappling him from her mind, or quite picture exactly what they might do together if they had. "To… bed, then?"

"Oh yes. Men, women, both. Several at a time, even. I've lost count over the years," Zevran replied wistfully, and dropped the spoon into the pot with a clink of emphasis. "Or are you simply wanting to know about the, how do the Fereldans say it? _Buggering?"_

"Buggering?" Kyrn repeated. Men all across Fereldan had spat that word from time to time. It seemed to be directed towards the men of the Clans. Upon recollection, none of the Keepers and storytellers would ever explain the particulars to her. "What is that? Is that what men do together?"

Zevran coughed to swallow a laugh, and then coughed in earnest against the burn from the pot of 'curry' he'd cooked up. "Surely, you're more experienced than _that_? A woman like you must have lovers to spare lined up."

"Lovers to _spare_?" She scoffed. "What kind of person do you think I am-?"

He leveled a somber stare at her, yanking the breath out of her with its seriousness. "And what of me, then?"

"I… didn't know," she stammered. "I don't know. I… just know… my life was much simpler than yours." She paused, a sudden rush of cold and darkness splashing over her. A shard of mirror dropping into a green flame in her mind. "At least," She muttered. "Until that damned eluvian, it was."

"Alright," he sighed and grasped her arm, pulled her towards him so they could both lounge against their piled up packs as the tiny cooking fire crackled. "Perhaps not so many as that. But surely, more than just the _one_?"

"Only ever Tamlen. My Lethallan and I knew each other since childhood, since my father found him wandering on the outskirts of a raided caravan. We were raised together. Like roots taking to soil."

He coaxed her nearer, and she lay her head against his stomach as he brushed his hand over her calf. "Your clan must be very good storytellers, then. I've seldom had the pleasure of such an experienced lover."

"They're quite prudish, actually... some of the older wives would put thistles in our sleeping blankets to spite us. I learned to read Tamlen like I read the wind, and the bark, and the slant of the sun. For me, pleasing him was like tracking any other prey."

Zevran glanced towards the outskirts of the firelight, where her companion wolf's eyes still glinted back at them as the creature prowled close and away in its usual sentry. The Mabari was looking useless as ever, tongue lolling out where it slept at the opposite side of the fire, audibly snoring.

"Tamlen though," she continued. "Was a rather terrible 'hunter'. I had to teach him everything I wanted. Lead him along like a mule, rather than expect him to lead, like a Halla." She hissed in a breath, "June would smite me for speaking of my dead Lethalan so."

"The dead are _dead_ ," Zevran quipped, "Our thoughts do not help them. Their scorn does not warm us." He tried to slide his hand further up her leg, but she lifted herself up to plant one elbow squarely on his sternum. Despite the wind knocked from him, he continued, "You asked before. About the men who bedded me?"

He planted kisses up her other arm, drawing her back to him again, "I'll tell you how it went. Some men would preen and flirt and shy away like they were ladies of the court. They wanted me to chase them, seduce them, make 'love' to them, but the next day?" He pushed her shoulders and turned his legs, and her back was on the ground. "They threw me away, and pretended they never met me."

"The others?" He sneered, grasped her wrists with one hand and forced her arms up above head, pinning them to the ground. He forced a knee between her legs as he loomed over her, "Brutes." he spat. "Men who would wrestle me to the ground, tear off my clothes and contemplate their manhood after they were through with me," With the his other hand, he drew groves up her legs with tense fingers.

He pressed his chest hard against hers, and whispered into her ear, "those I killed, and gladly. A few less rapists in the world, I say." With a turn of his hips, he rolled and pulled her on top of him, sliding a hand to her butt and the other to cup her face.

"But the best?" He whispered. "They were _bold_ , and playful. Those were my favorite, men and women alike. Those who know the game, and offer tit for tat."

"Tit for tat?" Kyrn asked breathlessly, leaning closer to press her chest to his.

He leaned up and whispered, "It doesn't take a cock in the ass to please another man. Even a finger will suffice." She sat up straight, surprised how hard his cock pressed against her from inside his breeches.

"Come now," Zevran laughed as she burned red from tits to temples. "Your Tamlen never asked that of you?"

Kyrn flapped the loose front of her shift, suddenly hungry for cold air and speaking far too quickly, "He tried to ask me once… but he meant _me_. And he wasn't talking about a finger and he could not tell me WHERE he EVER got the idea from! I told him NO and not to EVER ask such a thing again. But he was… too shem. To… needy." She finished with a stammer as he rolled his hips to meet hers.

"All take?" Zevran cooed, sitting up to grip her tight against him, "No give?"

"The man only seemed to use his tongue for boasting." then his mouth was on hers, Zevran's tongue exploring her mouth slowly, tracing the top lip and his teeth gently grabbing the bottom one just enough so she couldn't pull away even as she moaned at the way he rocked his hips up to meet hers. Though his body, here now and firm and warm and so obviously desiring hers was all she wanted in the world, it didn't shake the thought that perhaps her Tamlen never had been the love of her life she claimed him to be. She hadn't realized how many things were imperfect about Tamlen until he was finally dead. That perfect image in her mind of her sweet lathallan corroded day by day. His memory was as much a victim of the Blight as his earthly body.

He released her lip and nibbled a trail towards her neck, making her giggle as the air chilled each damp kiss, until he reached a breast, and showed the same restraint of his teeth as he took her nipple into his mouth, cloth and all. As he sucked the linen rubbed over her skin, and the damp spread out as she grasped his shoulder to keep from falling backward.

She pressed her hands into the small of his back and curled her fingers until her nails dragged against the grain of his shirt. He continued to pinch and tease her, though she could hear him moan through closed lips.

"How do you do that to me?"

Dragging her knuckles back along his ribs, she smiled as he paused when she pressed her fingertips into the back of his hips, rubbing small circles just under his waistband. "You're easier to read than you think," she offered.

"Do you want to, then?" He asked.

"Want to what?"

"Explore my ass, like you keep hinting about, hmm? It's not the first time you've asked about my past conquests."

She scrunched her nose back at him as they exchanged glances. "But 'tit for tat' you said. I don't want anything up MY ass."

Zevran chuckled softly, and laid back, "I will not go where I am not invited."

He grabbed a small jar of oil, and handed it to her. Catching his waistband with her thumbs, she pushed his pants down until his cock was freed. She gave it a gentle kiss as he pulled her hips towards his face. For a moment she scrambled to balance, until her chest was pressed over his stomach and she felt him loosening her small-clothes to probe her depths. Tongue beginning to flick over her clit, He pressed his hand to either side of her slit, spreading her wide so his tongue could reach up to tease as she delayed.

His other hand drew down to her breast, holding it in a pinch as she leaned down to press her lips over the top of his shaft, feeling him twitch up to meet her mouth.

With just a few drops of oil on her hand, she began, slowly reaching around to cup his balls in her hand. His soft moans reverberated from between her thighs as she massaged down the inside of his legs. He might have said more, but she pressed her folds down to meet his lips, eager to feel his tongue as hungry as it was for her in the Bracellian ruins.

Cupping his ass, she squeezed, delighted as he moaned with each long lick she drew up his shaft, sucking his lips tight against the head and spiraling her tongue. He squirmed into her grip, every muscle eager for her fingers to reach his hole. Gently spiraling at first, listening to him whimper, and then lap harder, answering her exploration with more pleasure as she proceeded even a little further, pressing the first joint of her finger in, and taking his cock further into her mouth.

"Asombroso, más, lupita, más!" He cried, and it was easy to tell she could proceed further. He'd never quivered from his hips like he did then, shivering down to his toes as he arched up to meet her, and she clenched her knees to keep from crushing herself to hard against him. He brought her close, closer than she liked. She didn't want to give in so fast, so she lifted her head and gasped, putting her teeth to the tip of his shaft gently, in warning.

He laughed breathily, heaving a sigh of delight as she whimpered as he stroked the edges of her quim while she delayed. "Alistair would love to be doing these things to you."

She smirked, twisting to look back at him, "You mention him so much. Do you feel some need to compete?"

"With that man? Never, I-" his next words were lost in a gasp as she twisted her finger inside him, happily watching him squirm as she drew her tongue gently up his length.

"Dreaming of him fingering _you_ , then?"

He smacked her ass for the first tiime she could remember, a confused scowl on his face. "Never! That man is insufferable!"

She put her mouth over the head of his cock just long enough to produce a smack of her lips. "Is that why you're harder than ever?"

She circled the thumb of the hand that was not currently being crushed by his over-eager hole over the tip of his cock, and watched his anger dissolve into frustrated uncertainty. "Braska!" He finally declared, "I cannot help it if my cock thinks he looks amazing naked! He is so insufferably absent-minded! He strips down right in front of my tent when you are not around!"

"Is that so?" She sighed as he returned to his work with a fury, his fingers running over the raw spot he had left on her ass cheek as she returned to taking as much of his length as she could. If he was in a race to bring her to completion, now she was too. Without hesitation, she slipped another finger inside him, and it was clear from the pulse of his cock and the thrust of his hips he wouldn't be much longer. She beat him, almost gagging on the taste of his seed as he came, and gasping for breath as she turned away and he pressed harder, tongue flicking fast against her as he pumped his fingers into her center.

They both promptly toppled over, an oil-slicked, sweaty, heaving mess. She laughed, for the thrill of Zevran's strange request and the giddy climax and the cool night air soothingly brushing over them.

As her breath came back to her, she laughed, "You must know by now I don't feel anything for Alistair."

"Of course," Zevran chirped. "Grey Wardens are all 'brothers in arms' or something like that?"

"No!" She snapped, sitting up to smile down at him as she wiped her face. "Because I love _you_."

He had been stroking a hand down her leg until then. His fingertips came to a stand-still on her hip as they locked eyes. After a long moment he rolled away and pulled his pants back into position, muttering about the mess.

"Did I do something wrong? More oil, less oil, should I have-?"

"It's fine," he snapped. "We should return to Denerim."

"But it's past sundown, now! And it's nearly an hour's walk, and-"

"Please." He growled, looked back at her like she had just risen from the dead.

The rest of her protests fell on deaf ears, as he kicked dirt into the tiny firepit, packed up the pans still dirty and only took enough time to wipe the grime away from himself with a washcloth before packing up. She could do nothing but mirror him, until their packs were tied down and they set off back to Denerim without a word between them, and several yards distance as Zevran made a point of rushing ahead anytime she tried to catch up.

Wynne was waiting for them when they reached Arl Eamon's estate, a sliver of a moon already risen high over the courtyard by the time the guards raised the gate for them. She was pacing between the entry rooms and agitating the staff greatly. It seemed every indentured elf in the building was trying to appease her with an offer of a late supper or extra pillows for her bed. Zevran would have endured her wrath first, but something in the expression he hid from Kyrn chilled Wynne. The mage stepped aside to let him pass, and transferred her wrath to Kyrn instead.

"What is the meaning of this tardiness? We are not here for errands and daliances!"

"Daliance?" Kyrn hissed. The word stung. Was that what she was to Zevran? It certainly seemed that was how everyone else saw them. No one had said a word to her about her feelings in the forest. They had all heard her declare he remorse.

" _Perhaps the matron saw what I didn't_ ," Kyrn wallowed in her thought until Wynne struck her staff into the ground with a loud clap to grab her attention.

"Grey Wardens do not FAWN over MEN like _blushing_ maidens!" Wynne derided. "And you did not even send word, what were we all to think?"

"I don't know, Keeper." Kyrn finished meekly. "Though, as you're the only one here chastising me, I'll thank you for your concern."

Wynne stepped back, surprised at the soft tone of her voice. "As long as you understand your _responsibilities_ , Warden."

"Aye, Keeper."

"Keeper? I am no Dalish. You may simply call me Wynne," The woman softened, touching a hand to her heart. "or friend…"

"Friend?" Kyrn sniffed, trying to grin through the pain in her chest. "Thank you, Wynne. May I go to bed now?"

Before Wynne could mouth the rebuff Kyrn heard in the silence, Kyrn finished, "By myself, if you must know…"

"Yes," Wynne moved aside, and nodded. "I will not keep you. Good rest to you, Warden Mahariel."

Kyrn plodded a few steps up the stairs, and turned around. "If you can be Wynne. Surely, I can be Kyrn?"

Wynne's stern gaze softened, and she leaned into her staff with a tired posture she rarely saw slip on the old woman. "Of course, Kyrn."


	21. Blood Beneath Their Feet

Month after month spent fighting for what remained of her life, and the same thought continued to surface, "Why is there always so much blood?"

Each life was precious amongst the clans. Elves did not wed or mate lightly, and even then, two elves never seemed to have the ease a human couple might in bearing a child. Life in the wilderness had its own difficulties, claiming the lives of children, mothers and elders first when nature demanded sacrifice.

You learned to savor each day and meal when the next one couldn't be seen. You bound each wound and took blood with great care when a stray nick from the wrong vine meant the difference between an easy winter or a month of fever and chills. The people would use their blood to mark themselves, to record a story on their face that any who knew and retold those stories would understand. "Claimed by the Mother, the artist, the warrior, the tree-born," they would say, to those who _knew._

Humans spilled so much blood it left her dumbfounded. They kept their brightest minds in servitude, culled their most adept Keepers and seemed to decide life or death on a whim. For the few holding the most coin, there was always another peasant to whip, and another warrior waiting to step up as Captain was slain. Always more ships, more cargo, and more grovelling masses to attend to the details of bringing a lush dinner to their table.

The Cousland villa was no different. Above, the old walls were built strong and thick with stones rounded up from a hundred miles in all directions. Their smoothed, carefully carved surfaces spoke of a fleet of artisans dedicated to their original creation. And now those walls housed a hundred men with itchy sword hands and hearts sore with hate.

They laughed and sang. SANG of slaughtering elves, or drunkards or Antivans and ESPECIALLY Orlesians. Sang as if it was a game to pass the time, to end life after life. Zevran and Wynne's plan to disguise themselves as guards to sneak in was good, but it meant more than an hour spent beneath reeking sweat-soaked platemail, inhaling the stench of the last loathsome occupant as she watched Arl Howe's men with silent contempt.

She couldn't imagine worse than that at the time. Now she could. Now she wished she still couldn't. A lifetime of spiced brandy couldn't wipe the gruesome images from her mind. Men broken on the rack, or sliced open like fresh-felled deer, or left to sit in their own filth for months while the men above laughed and forgot them. Dark hallways patrolled by an even more vile kind of man that didn't laugh at the _thought_ of killing, but the act of it.

And for what? When they had finally tracked the Arl down and forced a confession with a knife through his leg, he screamed of nothing more than hate for elves, hate fo the poor, and hate for the Wardens. His death brought no explanation, no justification for all the effort he and his men had expended to delay their mission. Just a hollow in her chest, to think that so much blood was spilled to stop them for _helping_. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of deaths, all because a few Fereldans hated the idea that the _Orlesians_ might be _right_.

"We're not even Orlesian. That daft tit," Alistair muttered. She could tell when he felt the same as her, but it always surprised her the way he bent his sorrow into sarcasm.

 _I abandoned her. I really am no more than a carrion crow._

When Anora had pretended innocence, and the full force of Loghain's men bore down on them, Kyrnn had called for reason. Ser Cauthrien's men had ambushed them from behind, struck a blow to Kyrnn's head so hard she instantly fell to the floor limp, and nearly caught the rest of them on the spot.

It took a slap in the face from Morrigan and all of Alistair's strength to drag him away from that bloodbath. They fled without Anora, suddenly tetherless. His bowels and belly and lungs tormented him. He bit down the urge to scream murder at any creature that so much as glanced in his direction. Once they finally forced him back to the damnable estate, he paced the corridors relentlessly as the rest of them spoke of strategy, of Riordan's message to them, of _anything_ but avenging Kyrn.

"Useless, god-forsaken, WHORESON!" Zevran shouted in the courtyard, finding himself striking down a lifeless training dummy until there was little left but kindling, bloodied straw and deamp earth all around him.

 _She was bound to fall too. Just like Rinna. At least your hands are clean this time._

Somewhere in the rage and self loathing, he had not noticed Anora. The Queen had escaped her "valiant rescue" by Loghain's personal guard and made her way back to her uncle's estate. Now she was glaring down at him, once again clothed in lush satin and gold brocade, doused in a perfume so strong it _almost_ wafted away the stench of unwashed platemail.

"I said, she's not dead," Queen Anora repeated, obviously there long enough to see the full depth of his frustration. "They took her to Fort Drakon, for questioning."

"No thanks to you," Zevran spat. "Besides, I've seen EXACTLY what your father's 'questioning' looks like."

"Oh yes," the Queen rolled her eyes and began to pace. "I should have told three dozen of my father's most loyal guard that I was WITH the people he considers enemies of the state. That would have ended well for ALL involved."

He sprang to his feet and rounded on her, pointing a finger at her perfect face to keep himself from running her through with more than words, "if she dies, there will be nowhere you can hide from the deaths I can deal to you."

Anora stood stock still a moment before coughing out a single, perplexed laugh. "Why yes, surely threatening _me_ will get her back. Now that you're done, how about a _plan_?"

He returned with her and listened, but the vast majority of her plans had nothing to do with rescuing his warden, his lover, his...

No, Kyrn was far down the list of royal chores the Queen had in mind. Her eyes were firmly set on reclaiming her power over the throne, and clear to anyone in the room save Alistair himself, her eyes were also fixed on the only remaining descendant of the Theirin bloodline.

It was astounding to hear the lot of them speak. Now that they had found another Grey Warden, and their lost little queen, it seemed like no one else was willing to risk their neck to bring Kyrn back from Fort Drakon. Wynne seemed concerned, but offered no more than platitudes. "Mahariel is strong. I'm sure she'll pull through this."

"Pull through?" Leliana grimaced, and whispered to him, "she talks as if Fort Drakon is a pleasant chateau."

Morrigan noded to them both, and pulled them aside as the political talk grew louder in the main hall. "You know what you two must do," the witch nodded sagely. "Mahariel is…" With a wistful nod to Zevran, Morrigan smirked, "special. More than that, we cannot afford to lose another Grey Warden at a time like this."

She looked over her shoulder back to Alistair, who stepped towards the doorway they spoke in, but was gently reeled in by his uncle's arm on one side, and Anora's on the other. "Especially when we seem to already be losing one…"

He slapped the palm of his hand against the stonework, and Leliana hissed in a breath in surprise. "I do not CARE about your darkspawn, or your politics, or your damned magics, witch!"

With a huff of disappointment, she glanced to Leliana, who nodded. "Well then," Morrigan began, "I do hope you're better at Wicked Grace than you are with your _feelings_ …"

 _I didn't ask for this._

Kyrn never wanted to lead the Grey Wardens, or battle a demon, and she certainly never wanted to charge into the heart of the shemlen nobility and ask for her own execution.

She could recall that something had gone wrong after they freed Anora, but the rest was a blur of blood and shouting. She recounted the important details to herself as she took in her surroundings. They had discovered another Grey Warden, Riordan, amongst the prisoners. They had freed a young noble. Rendon Howe was dead. It was all hard to grasp as her head pounded and her ears still rung.

"You took off your helm to face them." Alistair explained, morosely staring out the bars of the cell next to hers. "Ser Coulthrien, remember? Loghain's personal lackey. She came to collect Anora. You tried to reason, and one of her men struck you here," He indicated the base of his skull with a chop of his hand.

"Anora turned on us?" Kyrn stammered. She tried to sit up and crumpled back to the ground as her left hand gave way. Three of the fingers were swollen to twice their size, the bones and tendons so broken she couldn't move it past the wrist.

Alistair chuckled, "The one person in the room trying to keep the peace, and now you're here."

It was hard to focus on him against the throbbing behind her eyes. Perhaps she had just forgotten her own treatment. The blood dried around her temple spoke to some number of traumas, and it wouldn't' have been the first time there was a black void left after a strike to the head. The scent of death was everywhere here, dried into the crannies of the stones. Below them, the floor tiles were wet and raw and full of the stench of terrified men emptying their bowels, piquant with the bitter tinge of a joy for violence.

"This is everything I hate about you humans," Kyrnn growled, finally crawling over to the door of her drafty cage to get a look out at their surroundings.

"I'll take offense to that _later_ ," Alistair grimaced, dragging himself to the door next to hers. "Look, high up there."

"Windows too small," She replied, and continued scouring the room down to the stairs that lead to a host of screams coming from below. "I can hear dogs amongst the guards. They'll be worse than the humans."

"Mabari are loyal, even to psychopaths," Alistair spat. "What about taking out one of the guards as they pass?"

"If they don't have a key, we're worse off than now," She growled, and doubled over as a jolt of pain crackled out from from shoulder to temple.

"You're not doing well," Alistair stretched his arm, but couldn't seem to touch her.

"Good thing you don't have a mirror," Kyrn snorted, and then laughed, and then regretted it as she discovered just how many cracked ribs she had.

"No, wait… you're not DOING well!" Alistair repeated twisting his mouth into a smile. "They want us alive. We can _use_ that!"

She shrugged and glanced around her cell for anything at all useful. Were she as dextrous as Leliana she could have picked the lock. Were her hound or wolf not safely inside Eamon's estate, they would have torn the throats of any man that dared imprison her. If Ogrehn's breath didn't dissolve the iron the man could have probably headbutted his way out of the cell. Instead, it was just the two of them, stripped, beaten and useless.

"I mean, I play dead, and you wail and call the guards!" He dropped into a falsetto tone as he stated the charade, "Help, help! Alistair's not breathing! Please! Andraste save him!"

"Why would I call to _your_ goddess?"

"Andraste's not a _goddess_ , I just-" The religious conundrum disrupted his falsetto, and he grasped his hands in the air for thought. "You're right. You're a TERRIBLE actress. It will have to be me, then. HELP!" Alistair began to yell before she could concoct a response.

"No, stop-!" She hissed.

"HELP!" He wailed again, and threw a wink her direction. "Gods, MAKER, HELP HER! She's not BREATHING!"

She threw the blanket half-off herself and hissed back to him, "FINE. FINE. We're doing this. Now what?"

"GUARDS! ANYONE, PLEASE!" He screamed, rattling the bars as best he could manage, before whispering. "Good, sure, maybe… flail a bit?... maybe pull your top off? That'll definitely distract them-"

She shot back a glare, and he returned to his cries for help. A solitary guard responded, striking Alistair's barswith a metal pole and then banging a fist on Kyrn's cell door. "Quiet, knife-ear!" he snarled, "you're lucky Loghain wants you to suffer ALIVE-"

Kyrnn scraped the ground with her good hand, and let out the best wheeze she could dredge up from memories of a winter spent with constant pneumonia. Just past her cracked fingertips, she could see bones peeking out from beneath the loose straw.

"Course if you're just looking for a little attention," the guard sneered, loosening his belt. "I can give you that."

A quick turn of his keys and the door was open. He swung it closed again and trudged forward, slipping his pants to his hips. She grasped the bone, curled around and struck out with what she hoped was the sharp end. The edge chipped against armor but struck him in the inner leg, but nowhere near the manhood she was hoping to eviscerate.

He screamed, knocking her arm aside, launching the bone far outside her reach and then kicking her hard in the ribs.

She tasted blood as she coughed, vision bubbled with black and red. Every inch of her body screamed as she tried to recover. She shouted for Alistair to help as golden eyes flashed before her. She looked down at Zevran, glowering back at her as she tightened the bandages around his chest.

 _Did it hurt this much? Did I hurt him..._

Her own blood smeared under her hands as she coughed and tried to right herself. Plodding steps closing on her amidst a string of curses. An explosion of pain as he grabbed up her injured hand, crushing the inflamed fingers together, pinning her arm to the ground.

And she saw Zevran's hair hanging over her, softly whispering, "Lupita" as he pressed into her, cradling her in his arms, hot skin against cold wind.

 _I never lied. What changed._

Kyrn howled against the pain, and slammed her right fist into the guard's gorget, felt the metal buckle in, crunch against his adam's apple, crack her knuckles, gurgling as his breath cut off. She hooked tortured fingers into his armor, dragged him sideways, rolled onto his back and latched her knees around his neck, pressing hard until he breathed no more, finally smashing his head against the ground for good measure.

 _Why do they keep bringing me to this._

The guard's knife was still in his scabbard, but dropping his belt had scattered the items there all across the cell.

"You're awfully quiet, Alistair." Kyrn snapped. The key ring had somehow slid partway into his cell. "If you can't open the cell, pass ME the keys!"

Straining to reach them, she thumped the ground in emphasis, suddenly concerned by how Alistair lay on the ground, unmoving. "Come on, NOW you're quiet?"

As she strained to reach through the bars, the key ring just a hand's width past her reach, she finally started to smell the unmistakable stench of decay, and looked again, more critically.

The man in the cell next to her did not have blonde hair, even beneath the blood and grime. His hair was long and might have once been salt and pepper. Crumpled in a fetal position, the victim's frame was too emaciated and sickly to have been a strong, Chantry-trained templar a mere day before. She recoiled and stumbled back to the opposite side of her cell.

 _Who spoke to me? Who cried out…_

She slid down the bars and buried her head in her hands, curling up as far from both bodies as she could.

"I tried," She sobbed.

The hours ticked by slowly, curled up trying not to move lest she twist a rib further. Pain swelled and ebbed from her head down to her hip, and the floor slowly ate pulled away her warmth until the pain of the cold seemed like a comfort against the rest of her injuries.

All around her the smell of death bloomed slowly, blanketing everything as the guard began the first small steps of decomposition. Were it not for that scent she might have noticed their scent, before their voices.

"Maker's tears, this is not good," Leliana's sweet lilt echoed over as tumblers clicked softly into place. "We'll never get her in uniform in that state-"

"Do you have a better plan?" Zevran cursed. He was dragging another body into the cell with her as they looked down at her. She wanted to touch his face, to feel that he was real, but her arm was too heavy.

"I don't know, I don't _know_!" Leliana fretted, turning in circles to take in all their surroundings as Kyrn had done hours, maybe even a day before.

"I should have brought the old crone," Zevran chuckled nervously, brushing blood-matted hair from her face with the gentlest touch of his hand. His fingertips were covered in soft suede, not the usual well-worn fitted drakeskin he prized. As she squinted up at them, she saw the brocade robes they wore. Leliana looked the perfect image of the high society bard she claimed to be.

"You look like a dandy," Kyrn winced. "Red suits you."

He stared back at her with a grim frown, before Leliana called him to help her carry a crate. With many apologies and a kiss to her forehead, he plucked her up like she weighed nothing, and they coaxed her into a supply crate, emptied of an order of daggers. The journey was agonizing, for the bend of her hips, the wood knocking into her knees, the sawdust suffocating her, and in the tight space, every breath jabbed at the already broken ribs, until it took every drop of concentration left to keep her breath steady, quiet, silent as death.

It was her ribs that awoke her again as they extricated her from the crate back at Arl Eamon's estate. Leliana complained of Zevran's insinuation that he was whoring her out to the Fort Drakon commander. Alistair was shouting in turn that they had gone to Fort Drakon and then in turn again that they had not taken him with them. It was the roar of mana whipping around Wynne that finally silenced them. The pain instantly eased, and a mist of light trickled over her skin. Warm and numb and calm, she hardly heard the commotion as they all began to argue again. Through the haze, someone scooped her up, and immediately she smelled Mink's foot and a new overtone of cedar and licorice that must have been tucked into the fancy clothes Zevran was still wearing, dappled with fresh blood that wasn't hers.

"I thought they'd killed you," Kyrn rasped out, burrying her head against his chest and gripping the smooth brocade tightly.

With a snort, he replied, "There are only a few men in this town skilled enough to best me. And I'm carrying one of them." He winced as she punched him, but laughed a sigh, gripping her tighter as they rounded a corner. His steps echoed wide and soft, narrowing and growing sharper as they came to the corridor of bed chambers.

The stone surfaces exaggerated all the sounds in the estate. Hard clipped echoes on each stride, and every chink of metal in his armor hidden under the robes resounded loud enough for her to hear, even as she heard the thunderous strides of De'Fen'len bounding up to meet them with the mabari galloping not far behind.

But he didn't take her to the bed chambers. Instead he laid her out on a wide, unyielding slab with only a thin blanket between her and more cold stone. As she opened her eyes, he was joined by Leliana and Wynne, who looked solemnly guilty as they tested bandages with a quick snap of their hands.

"Wounds like yours won't be healed in a day," Wynne tutted.

"We need to bind your ribs, or they might-," Leliana started, only to be cut off by Kyrn's growl of, "OUT!"

"We only mean to," Wynne pleaded.

"I thank you for your magics, but OUT. All of you," Kyrn snarled again. She snatched Zevran's hand as he turned to follow them out. "Not you."

"My Warden?"

"Please," she whispered, "don't leave me again."

He sat down beside the healer's table and blinked back at her slowly. "What do you need?"

With a wince she took stock of the room, noting small bathing tub, the neatly coiled rolls of good rag cloth bandages, and the countless ointments, most of which she did not recognize or knew were only good for making silly Chantry healers look impressive. Amongst the countless tinctures were several bottle of alcohol of varied purities.

"Those," She nodded to the spirits, "and those," to the bandages, and with a grimace, she tossed her head to a pile of split wood probably meant for the tiny iron stove beneath the tub. "And the wood."

"It is my turn to tourniquet _you_ , then?"

"A bath first. Save a half dozen for later."

Just as he had a few nights prior, he tended the small fire with an experienced eye. With a water cistern nearby the tub was half-full in no time. Noticing her shivering, he took off the brocade robe and laid it over her. As she stiffened nervously, he laughed, "It is not mine. I… borrowed it from _Anora_."

With a huff she wrapped it tight around herself, and began to clean the blood from her face with it. When the water was warm he carried her to it, working silently and carefully, but hardly glancing in her direction, even as he helped her out of her pitiful, torn-up small clothes and braced against her so she did not slip in the water.

Deep, penetrating heat surrounded her as the water splashed up to meet her shoulders. "I might happily _drown_ right now, if it felt like THIS when I died."

"One should not tempt fate," he murmurred, wringing out a cloth over her head. The water was already clouding sanguine before he even reached her shoulder. His hand jerked back as he began to scrub further down, and looked up as if he had been shocked.

"You can touch me," she stammered. "I can't move my arm well."

"No, I just," He shook his head, and clumsily pressed on with the washcloth. "We should be quick, we need to bind your ribs,"

"If I said something wrong, I apologize." It suddenly struck her how strange it must be, to bathe her like she was a helpless babe after all the times he'd explored her body with abandon. "The other night-"

"You do not need to apologize."

But his tone made her wonder if she did. He was fire and ice intermittently ever since their last evening together, until they talked about Alistair as one might discuss a chess piece, or a piece of art.

"Did I… did I hurt you? Insult you?" She pressed.

"No, please. Enough."

He thrust the cloth into the water and grasped her up. The movement was far more clumsy than he intended. It was hard to imagine that a wet, naked elf woman would be harder to move than a human warrior in full plate, but he had never accounted for just how heavy and unwieldy the body was when it did not move itself.

With only a small stumble, he finally was able to prop her up on a stool against the wall, and narrowly avoided giving her a new blow to the head. Relatively clean and dripping from the bath, she was surprisingly striking. As she rounded her eyes on him, he was suddenly aware that she might not _want_ to be naked any longer.

"Zevran," she stammered, then wordlessly snapped her finger and pointed to a pile of thin blankets in the corner.

It occurred to him that he had never seen her body in light any brighter than the dying edge of a sunset. He had never realized how scarred she was amidst the galaxy of freckles he'd caught in moonlight. Dark pink concentric circles dappled her midsection from the edge of one hip up to almost the opposite breast. Her leg had a jagged gash that was almost invisible against the skin until it caught the side-long light of the window. Fresher marks overlaid those, brighter pink and almost red slashes signaling their injuries from bandits, hurlocks, and worse over the past few months.

As he flapped the blanket open, he pondered aloud, "How did you get those strange markings across your stomach? That is no knife wound."

"Creeping Glee," She sniffed as she raised one arm as best she could to let him wrap the blanket smoothly around her. "Harel'thorn. Big nasty bushes with pretty, bright green leaves and barbs as long as your fingers. Mostly just painful and irritating. But I fell into a briar when I was younger. Maybe twelve summers? After the fall, I can hardly remember anything until that Autumn. Keeper told me I was feverish for months. When you get the venom deep it blisters your skin and feels like you're burning alive."

"You got lucky." He laid out the wood splints and looked them over. It occurred to him that he'd never learned how to really take care of a body before. Even now, he was just mimicing what she had done for him. What if Wynne should have healed her longer? What if another venom was lurking beneath the obvious wounds this time as well.

"I don't _feel_ lucky," She muttered, gingerly touching the side of her head where a large welt pressed up through the small corn row braids at her temple.

He worked as fast as he could to set the splints. With each tug to guide the bandages into place she cried out, just a tight-mouth squeal at first, but a gasping screech by the end, as he finished the last knot. He lent her his shoulder and they walked lopsidedly back to her room, where she fell into bed with a final yelp before her wolf and mabari fought for the rest of the space on the tall mattress.

Wynne finally reappeared and again cast some kind of healing magic. This one soothed the aches, and the old mage said it would begin to knit her shoulder back together. "She'll want her bow arm back as soon as possible." It was only the first of many spells that she would repeat as the eventful evening turned into a long night.

Leliana arrived with thin broth, soft food, and a ballad on her tongue that set Kyrn to scowling at once.

"You Elvahn is terrible," she muttered.

"Oh?" Leliana replied sweetly, "That ballad earned me much praise in Orlais."

"That's because the only elves you met couldn't speak Elvahn, or were more worried about grovelling at your feet," Kyrn spat.

"Braska, do you have to be so cruel?" Zevran finally snapped. He had been caught between the doorway and her bed the whole evening. Anytime he looked to leave she leveled a stern glare at him until he relented.

"You're right," the two women said at once.

Leliana chuckled, and fluffed one of the pillows absently. "It's true… I did not realize how much groveling there really was. Until it was too late."

"Your voice is nice, though. No… it's lovely," Kyrn stammered apologetically. "I promise not to hurt your delicate shem ears with Orelesian if you'll stop trying to sing our ballads."

"Deal," Leliana smirked as she plucked up the bowl Kyrn had ravenously emptied.

So the wheel continued to spin over the next several hours. Broth and spells and his Warden falling in and out of sleep. When she was not awake to keep him, it was the wolf insistently crossing between him and the doorway, until finally he pulled up one of the padded chairs that looked like it had never been sat upon, and leaned over the mattress with a sigh of defeat.

Alistair peered in, and cleared his throat.

"Rest assured, If you wake her I will gut you," Zevran hissed. What could the royal bastard want in the dead of night, anyhow.

"I just," he began, and ran his hands through his hair and threw his arms down again. Someone in the castle had found the man a copper-tinged silk shirt with lions embroidered in gold bullion, facing each other across the width of the chest. It was easy to see where the conflict lay: between the silk and his heart. "I was hoping she could advise me."

"What advice could our _fair prince_ possibly need?" Zevran drolled.

"It's just… it's Anora… I don't know how I didn't see this coming."

" _Because you don't see anything coming_ ," Zevran thought bitterly.

"I knew I was the King's son, but I'm a bastard. And now my Uncle and Teagan and all their advisors are urging me to marry her! I just don't know what do do."

"Marry her," Zevran yawned.

"Are you mad?"

"No," Zevran clucked back, glancing between him and the bed to be sure she did not wake. "It's quite simple. If you can be royalty, Always choose royalty. Whether you become royalty or not, a blade might find your throat. But if you're royalty, you'll have a lot more fun beforehand."

"Really?" he spat back. "Just like that?"

Zevran shrugged. It was not a dilemma he would ever have to face. To begin, he was an elf, and it was the unspoken rule that an elf would never be allowed to rule _anyone_. And as for the Crows, they might be collectively wealthy, but there were always powers in place to keep them at each other's throats instead the throats of every noble above them. Privilege was something you couldn't take with blood spilled. It had to be blood _born_.

"I can't believe you! So you're saying, if you were in my position, you'd marry Anora and forsake HER?" Alistair pointed to his sleeping Warden, and Zevran's chest ached to think of it.

Before he could respond, Kyrn rolled towards Zevran and mumbled sleepily, "Alistair can't have you. I claimed you first."

Her drowsy, nonsensical words reduced the prince to a blubbering, stammering, incoherent mess. He pointed menacingly to Zevran a few more times, until he was lead out at nose-point by the Mabari, who hunkered down in the doorway with a rumbling snort.

" _Claimed_ ," he thought wistfully. " _As if I was ever really free…"_

She'd awoken to find Zevran passed out against her leg, a blanket thrown over him so hap-hazardly that at first she didn't see his head, save for the slow up and down of the covers.

At the foot of the bed were not one, but two wolves now. One brown-eyed, and one dark as night with golden eyes squinting back at her.

"I appreciate your concern, Morrigan."

Comparing her situations, Drakon was excruciating. The recovery was painful, and today was merely grueling. All her muscles were clenched from her fingertips to her chest, and it took all morning to try and pull her arm back far enough to strike a decent shot.

The day continued in training and recovery in turns. Wynne would coax magic through her skin, and then pull her arm back to loosen the tendons without warning, until the entire estate was used to her screams by the next evening.

By the time the sun set again, she was amazed to look in the mirror and don her armor again (it seemed that Zevran and Leliana had stolen it out of Fort Drakon alongside her), she looked in the mirror and marveled at the elf who stared back at her.

Her eyes were sunken and dark, but her skin was smooth, her complexion almost healthy despite two days of hell and the gnawing chasm in her heart. She had gained so much muscle over the past three months, that her arms flexed as she grasped her hand open and closed.

She continued to stare, feeling a numbness creep over her to see the body that felt so broken, seemingly whole. The only hint of the horrors she'd seen was wedged under her fingernails, a dark red rim of blood that wouldn't scrub out.

 _Did the same me come back?_

 _Where does the woman end, and the Warden begin?_

 _How long until the Warden becomes the Darkspawn herself?_


End file.
